The Silver Stag
by jilyshipper235
Summary: Ever wonder how James Potter and Lily Evans fell in love? Follow them through their journey in seventh year, dealing with jealousy, friendship, heartbreaks and an on coming war outside the safe confines of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey guys! This is my second fanfiction and I am really excited to post it. I will try to pot once a week but it will most likely be on the weekends and once school starts I will most likely be posting on Sundays because I will have volleyball everyday of the week. I really hope you guys like the story. I know that there are some characters in the story, like Frank Longbottom and Amos Diggory that should have already graduated because I am writing this in their seventh year but I need them for the story.**

**Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I never will be and if I was, I would not be writing on . I would be publishing this story because I know how some of my fans want it really badly. But, as you can see, I am posting this on so I am, in fact, not J.K. Rowling. :(**

"Now, Lily, Remember darling, do not forget to write us, OK?" My father was gripping my shoulders very tightly. We were standing right outside of platform 9 ¾. I looked up at him; there were tears in his eyes.

"Yes, Father, I will not forget." I answered him stepping through the platform and leaving the Muggle world.

When I got to the other side it was like relief had hit me. This summer was the worst summer of my life. My mother had died. That had been a great blow. My father had been depressed for months when I finally made him get out of the house and try to have fun. I know he still misses my mother but he shows it less.

It is my first year at Hogwarts without my mother. I am going into my seventh year so for the past six years I have had her support through all of this. It took my father a little bit to get used to a witch in the house but he finally caught on around fourth year. Now, my sister is a different story. Petunia has never been the happiest about me being a witch. She insisted on not even going onto the platform this year. That is why I am here alone right now.

I take a deep breath and turn around looking at the place. I looked at the giant scarlet red train that will take me to my happy place; the place that was my safe haven for the past six years.

"Hey, Lily." I felt someone slip their hand into mine; their hand was very big, smooth and warm. I turned around and saw the person I just wanted to see.

"Jacob!" I exclaimed and threw my arms around his neck, kissing him on the lips for the first time in months. Jacob Griffin had been my boyfriend for the past ten months. He was a half-blood and was a fellow Gryffindor. Jacob had addressed me first in sixth year saying that he found me fascinating and would love to get to know me, after a few months of spending every waking minute together, Jacob kissed me and I found myself kissing him back.

"How are you doing? Are you ok?" I knew that he was referring to what happened to my mother over the summer, I hadn't told him what happened and he knew not to press me about it because he knew that it was very traumatizing to me.

We started walking in the direction of the train.

"I am doing as well as I can. Are you going to be sitting with Alice, Mary, Marlene and I on the train?" I asked. I knew that he had his own friends from other houses, but he also enjoyed being with Potter and his posse. I didn't mind Remus, he was probably the most decent one there, but I could not stand Potter and Black. Jacob has to put up with all four of them anyways; he shared a dormitory with them, including Frank Longbottom who was Alice's boyfriend.

We climbed aboard the train because I did not see any of my friends on the platform so they must be in a compartment.

"When we get on the train I need to head down to the Prefect carriage for a little bit, do my Head Girl duties and then I will be back." I promised Jacob. I had to let go of his hand and walk behind him because the passageways on the train were a little narrow.

We walked through most of the train when I finally found a compartment that consisted of Alice Prewett, Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald and Frank Longbottom. I slid open the door.

"… it was amazing, I couldn't believe how all the Muggles acted there but I could tell my dad was having a blast, Mum didn't enjoy it so much though, the rides made her a little sick." Alice finished talking and turned to me. "Oh, Lily!"

"Hey, Lily," Everyone chorused together.

"Hey, guys."

"Hey, Jake," Frank called to Jacob; I didn't like it when people called Jacob by his nickname, Jake, but there was nothing I could do about it.

"Guys, I would love to stay and chat but I need to go do my Head Girl duties but I will be back soon. Is it all right if Jacob stays with you guys for a little bit?" I asked pinning my shiny gold badge on the robes, imprinted on the badge was _HG_. It made me feel giddy just looking at it.

"Yeah, of course." Marlene answered. I turned to Jacob.

"I'll be back soon." I stood on my tip toes and kissed him on the cheek. I was fairly short for my age, a whopping five feet three inches where Jacob was six feet one inch.

I opened the door to the compartment and walked out.

_Smack!_

Suddenly I was falling to the ground and I put my arms out behind me to break my fall.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Evans." I heard the foulest voice say. I opened my eyes and let them adjust, proving my suspicions.

"Potter." I said with venom. He stuck out his hand to help me up but I pushed it away and got up myself.

"Where are you going in a hurry, Flower?" Sirius called from behind him. I hated the nick name that Sirius had for me but no matter how many times I told him to stop he just wouldn't.

"I have to go to the Prefect meeting," I pointed to my badge. "Head Girl."

"Oh, yeah, James don't you have to go to that?" Peter spoke up.

"Why would Potter have to go?" I asked. The words were slipping out of my mouth.

"I happen to be Head Boy." James pointed to a gold badge that stuck out from his black robes. Engraved on it was _HB_. I groaned.

"Why isn't Remus Head or something?"

"Don't you think I have already asked Dumbledore that?" He flipped his hair; it looked tamer than last year, at least he wasn't brushing his hand through it.

"He answered saying that he got the right person." Sirius laughed a little.

"Is Remus at least a Prefect?" I looked at Remus' robes and saw that there was a silver badge that was engraved with _Prefect_. I sighed in relief.

"Do you want to walk down with us, Remus?" James asked.

"Actually, the Prefects go down after the Heads do just so the Heads can converse." Remus said matter-of-factly.

"What's with all the commotion out here?" Jacob came out of the compartment.

"Oh, just talking about Prefects and Heads." Remus answered.

"Oh," Jacob looked at James, a loathing kind of look.

"Don't worry, Griffin; your girlfriend will be taken care of." James turned on his heal and started walking.

"Um, Potter?" He turned around on his heal again.

"Hm?"

"The Prefect carriage in the other way." I giggled a little.

All James did was stick his nose up in the air and started walking the other way with a little "Hmph".

I walked after James.

One thing that I did not like about the placement of the Prefect Carriage was that it was at the same end of the Hogwarts Express that the Slytherins sat in. I always had a habit of looking into the compartments as I walked. We passed a compartment with about two Hufflepuff fifth years in it, then five Slytherin sixth years. Right before we got to the Prefect Carriage I looked into the next compartment and my stomach shot up to my throat and bile rose in my mouth. I had locked eyes with none other than Severus Snape, my ex-best friend. I swallowed the bile and continued walking.

James and I hadn't said a word to each other on the way but once he got into the Prefect Carriage he spoke.

"Ok, I have no idea how to do this… so is it Ok if I just let you talk?" He admitted.

"Yeah, that's fine. I was planning on doing that."

"I was also wondering if it would help if I got all the Prefects to write down if they were going to try out for their House's Quidditch team. I thought that maybe I could look at the list and whoever I think will make the team we can work their patrols around the Quidditch schedule. I also know that the Heads are the ones who plan the Quidditch matches and I will really be able to help with that, also Hogsmeade trips." He nodded as if saying he was done talking. I cleared my throat.

"That, um, would be a lot of help." What happened to the Potter that I knew? The one who was always showing off about his Quidditch skills, the one who was always trying to make his hair look like he just got off of a broom, the Potter who was always asking me out. We were alone, why wasn't he taking his chance? "Wait, how will you know if they will make it on the team?"

"Well, I was also awarded with Gryffindor Quidditch Captain and I will mostly base it off of the people who were on the team last year." He pulled a plain piece of parchment out of his pocket and a special quill that you did not have to dip in ink. He placed it on the table that was surrounded by seats for the Prefects.

The door opened and Remus walked in, then Alice and then Amos Diggory. James and I waited by the front of the large compartment for the Prefects to finish filing in.

Once everyone was here I stood up.

"Hello, everyone. I am your Head Girl Lily Evans and this is your Head Boy James Potter." I gestured to James. Everyone in the room started chattering.

"Why is _he_ Head Boy?"

"Is Dumbledore out of his mind?"

"I bet that Lily made Dumbledore choose him."

"Don't be foolish, Dumbledore would have to be the one asking Lily if James could be Head Boy; Lily thinks Potter is a git."

"Guys, I need to finish talking." I tried to shout over everyone. I looked at James next to me. He put his hand on my shoulder as if saying, "I got it."

"Listen up!" James' voice boomed over the crowd and everyone quieted down.

"Thank you, Po-James. Now, as I was saying. For all of you new Prefects there a couple ground rules that you have to follow. First, you must show up to your patrols unless you have a detention or you have talked to James and I other wise. While you are on patrol," I raised my voice a little. "you can give detentions to anyone but you can only take points away from people that is in _your_ house. You will be patrolling any night of the week, Monday through Friday, from nine to eleven. The nights that you will be patrolling will be consistent so James and I will make sure that the morning after you patrol you have free period first, so you can get some rest. One last thing, if you are planning on trying out for Quidditch, before you leave can you please put your name, House and number year you are in, just so we can plan your patrolling around it. Well, off off!"

At that, everyone piled out of the large compartment but not before most of them put their name down on the Quidditch sheet.

Once everyone was gone James took the sheet.

"I bet you want to go back you your boyfriend now." He said while looking down at the paper.

"No, its ok; he can handle being without me for thirty more minutes." James looked up at me over the paper.

"I thought you really liked him?"

"Yeah, yeah I do. But, over the summer we never saw each other and I was thinking a lot…" I drifted off. "You probably don't want to hear this."

"No, its fine, Evans, I can probably help you if you are having trouble with the relationship." He moved and sat down next to me now.

"Well, I don't know… he seems a little… distant sense the end of term and…" I didn't know why I was confiding him with all the things that were troubling me with Jacob but I felt safe that none of these things would be told to anyone. "He seems like he has feelings for his old girlfriend, Jocelyn Joyce from Hufflepuff, and she seems like she wants him back. She's the type of girl that will do anything, even if it means hurting anyone in her path, to get him back."

"It doesn't seem like that is the only thing on your mind." He started putting checks next to names on the Quidditch paper.

"Well… not really. I guess… I don't really care if he goes back to his old girlfriend." He quickly looked up at me in astonishment, and then he smiled.

"Ah," He said putting down the quill. "That's the jackpot." I smiled a little. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"What do you think I should do about it?"

"I think that if you are unhappy in the relationship then you should break it off."

"You really think so?" I thought about it in my head. Breaking up with Jacob? I don't know; we had a fantastic relationship and I am probably just getting paranoid.

"Yeah, I mean, I would." He shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing and looked down at the paper.

"James?"

"Hm?" He said without looking up.

"Have you ever been in love?"

The question took him by surprise; I could see his eyes move up to me without moving his head. Then after thinking for a little bit, his head followed his eyes.

"I'm in love right now and I know that for a fact." He nodded his head as if agreeing with himself.

James? In love? It couldn't be possible. He was the type of guy that always went out with girls just to shag them or snog them a couple times and then he would dump their sorry little asses without even telling them why.

"With who?"

"Well, Lily, that is a secret and if I were to tell you I would have to kill you." He winked at me.

"Why are you being so nice?" I asked after a couple minutes. He had given up on putting the checks next to people's names and was now doodling on the side of the paper.

"What do you mean?" He asked without looking up. I looked out the window and watched as the mountains went by.

"Well, you are not being your usual self; you aren't being cocky about Quidditch, you aren't pushing your hair back like you used to, you aren't asking me out all the time and your wand is in your pant leg by your shoe, it isn't in your hand at the ready like it usually is in case you want to hex someone for fun."

"Well, I realized over the summer that doing that stuff was not helping me get farther in life at Hogwarts. I want to settle down with a _real_ girlfriend because this is my last year at Hogwarts and I want to go into the world with someone by my side, the person in particular I will not say. I am giving up my foolish games because I realized that the girl I am in love with does not like that type of stuff, that's all." He looked at his watch when he finished talking. "I think we can go back to our compartments."

I nodded and we got up. I was too astonished from what James had just said to talk but I grabbed his arm as he was about to leave. I didn't know what I was going to say but I needed to say something.

"By the way," I cleared my throat. "I like it how you are now, maybe we can be friends." I let go of his arm and I swear that I saw a smirk on his face as he turned around.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey, guys! Sorry about not updating with a new chapter; my birthday was on Saturday and my three best friends slept over on Friday and then I had nine people sleep over on Saturday, including all of my best guy friends and it was amazing. So here is another chapter and I really hope you like it. BTW I am so excited for Teen Wolf tonight, for any of you who like teen wolf:)**

"Welcome!" Dumbledore boomed over the crowd just after all the first years were sorted. "Please, I know you are hungry but I would like you to listen to my messages that I have to tell you. To start, I would like to say that the Forbidden Forest is off limits to everyone at the school unless told other wise. Next, I would like to remind you that there is a list of the banned toys from Zonko's are on Mr. Filtch's office door. Lastly, I need to remind you about the oncoming war with a so-called Dark wizard that goes by the name of Lord Voldemort. The ministry does not want me to tell you about it but I think it's better to know that to not know. The war is getting very dangerous out there and please stay on school grounds unless you are going to Hogsmeade, thank you, you may eat now."

As Dumbledore finished his speech all the empty plates in the Great Hall filled with food and the students started grabbing at them. I looked to my left where Alice sat and I looked to my right where Marlene sat. I still couldn't believe the magic that was involved to make the food appear like this.

"Hey, Flower, can you pass me the 'taters?" Sirius said from across the table. Across from me sat James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, Frank was next to Alice.

I looked at Sirius and pointed to the mashed potatoes that sat to my left. He nodded enthusiastically and I passed them to him.

"Hey, wheres Jacob?" Remus asked, looking around the table. My eyes quickly shot at James, remembering our previous conversation. He looked at me too.

"I don't know." I said with a little sadness in my voice. I looked over at the Hufflepuff table and saw that Jocelyn wasn't there, of course.

"How was your summer, Lily?" Alice asked me. Alice and I weren't as close friends as Marlene and I were so I hadn't told her what happened to my mom.

"It wasn't my best." I said before shoving a mouthful of peas into my mouth.

"Why?"

"Alice, her mum died." Marlene spat at her. James started choking on his food. He took his napkin and wiped his face.

"Lily, your mother died?" He asked after he stopped coughing. I looked down at my lap and nodded; I didn't want my friends to see that there were tears in my eyes.

"Well, my summer was great…" Alice went into a long story about how she and her family went to a Muggle amusement park. I looked at James and blushed as our eyes met.

"Password?" The fat lady called from her picture frame as she always did whenever someone approached the Gryffindor common room.

"Dittany." I said clearly to the portrait. The Fat Lady nodded and her frame swung open, revealing the Gryffindor common room.

I walked in and everyone followed me.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted." Sirius said, yawning and plopping down on the couch in front of the fire.

"Ah, Ms. Evans and Mr. Potter, just the people I wanted to see." I turned at the sound of my name and saw that it was Professor McGonagall.

"Yes, Professor?" James walked up to her as I did.

"You will not be staying in the Gryffindor common room anymore—"

"Why?" James interrupted her, panic in his voice.

"Please let me finish, Mr. Potter. As I was saying, Heads have their own separate common room and dormitories so, if you will please follow me, I can show you." She turned on her heal and started walking toward the portrait we had just come through. James and I followed her.

McGonagall had taken us down a floor so that we were on the same floor as the Charms classroom. She brought us down a couple hallways and finally we got to a portrait of a black cat playing with yarn.

"Sarah, this is James Potter and Lily Evans; the Head Boy and Girl for this year," When McGonagall stopped talking she turned to James and I. "Sarah is an animagus but while she was in her cat form a Dark wizard casted a spell on her that made her stay this way. When she died Dumbledore put her into a portrait so she could protect the Head's common room; we trust her very well. Now, you can both choose a password that only you should know."

I turned to James.

"You can choose the password." He said, brushing the hair out of his eyes that had fallen in his face.

"Er, ok, is Cinderella ok?"

"What is that, some type of Muggle disease?

"No, it was my favorite princess as I was growing up, it's the first thing that came to mind." James shrugged and I went back to the portrait. "We would like our password to be Cinderella."

The cat meowed and then let us into the common room. When we got in it felt like we were still in the Gryffindor common room; the common room was identical. The only difference was that there were two large banners hanging from the ceiling, one with my picture on it and one with James' picture on it.

"The staircase that goes to the left leads to Lily's room and the one of the right leads to James' room, just as if you are in the Gryffindor common room. There is a pathway that leads between your two rooms, here let me show you." McGonagall started walking up the right stair case so we were going to James' room.

When we got to the top of the stair case there was a door and McGonagall opened it. When we walked in James gasped.

"This looks exactly like my room does at home!" He exclaimed.

"Yes, Mr. Potter. We have this thing set up between the two rooms and if something is placed down in your room back home then it will turn up here, same the other way, if something is placed down in this room then it will show up in the other room, but it does not work with people. The same is for Lily's room."

James turned in circles looking around the room. He stopped abruptly looking across the room at a door. "Why is a door there? There isn't one in my room."

"That leads into the hallway that in between your two rooms." She explained. She opened the door and we walked out. About twenty feet away was another door across from James' door that I knew would lead to my room. About in the middle of the hallway was a door on the left wall; the door was on the wall that was the same in the common room.

"This door leads to your bathroom." McGonagall pointed to the door. She opened it and it revealed a stair case that spiraled in a circle until it got to the floor at the bottom.

After McGonagall finished giving a tour to our new common room I had told James that I wanted to go to bed and I snuggled up in my bed, pretending I was back at home.

The next morning, surprisingly, I found myself walking with James to Charms.

"What do you have after this?" He asked me, looking at his schedule that had been placed on our bedside tables throughout the night.

I sighed as I looked at my next class. "Transfiguration."

"Ugh, that sucks. I have Care of Magical Creatures and then Potions."

"Oh, I have Potions after Transfiguration and then I have lunch and after lunch I have free period."

He looked down at his schedule. "So do I."

I smiled at him. I was surprised that I had been talking to James like this, considering that last term I hated him.

We walked into the Charms classroom and took seats next to each other. Alice and Marlene filed in and Marlene hesitantly sat down next to me, looking at James.

"Do we have assigned seats?" Remus asked as he came into the classroom.

"No?" James looked confused.

"Then why are you two sitting next to each other?" Marlene leaned forward so James could see her as Remus sat down on the other side of James. James shrugged his shoulders.

"Class, quiet down! Today we will be working on a review from last year of nonverbal spells."

The classes for the week went by quickly. I didn't have any classes with Jacob except for free period on Wednesdays which was the first thing in the morning and Care of Magical Creatures.

I had most of my classes with James but luckily he was becoming one of my best friends. I don't know why we are connecting so quickly, it is weird. Our friends keep on asking if they can come over to our new common room but we say no; we like having time after dinner to talk to each other about random stuff. Its nice talking to James, I am really glad that he changed over the summer.

Right now I am walking down the hallway with James patrolling the halls. It is around eleven o'clock and it is the first time that James and I have had to patrol. Dumbledore requested that we do patrolling on Fridays late at night because that is when the partiers usually come out.

Right now James was babbling on about how one of the prefects from Slytherin never shows up for patrolling.

"…Dumbledore really needs to talk to him because he has missed three so far—Lily, you are about to run into a wall." James said in a casual voice.

Before I could process what he said by body hit something solid and I fell back. I didn't realize that I had been looking at his face the whole time he was talking.

"Lily, are you OK?" I looked up and saw James kneeling on his knees and a hand out stretched. I laughed a little.

"Yeah, I just wasn't watching where I was going." I took his hand and I stood up.

"Were you too busy thinking?" He flashed a smile as me, not a smile like he was trying to seduce me what a friendly smile that send butterflies up my stomach.

I looked at my watch and noticed that it was 11:10.

"Oh, James, I'm sorry but I haven't really seen Jacob all week and he asked me to meet him in the Charms class room at eleven-ten. I'll be back in, like, twenty minutes. If you want you can wait by the classroom." I started walking in the opposite direction, noticing where we were and realized that the Charms class room was right about the corner. I could see his smile falter but it quickly came back.

"Yeah, I'll stay right around the corner so you don't lose me." He laughed a forced laugh and he walked me to the classroom.

I opened the door and turned to him, "It wont be long."

When I got into the classroom it was dark. I looked around for a couple candles to light but I couldn't find them.

"I'm over here." I heard Jacob's voice and I turned around. I could see his silhouette in the moonlight by the window and I walked over to him.

"I've missed you." I hugged him and sat down next to him on the windowsill.

"I've missed you too," His voice sounded distant. "How has your year been so far?"

"It has been good. I am actually becoming friends with James."

"You mean, Potter? Why are you friends with him?" There was venom in his voice.

"Yeah, we share our own common room now and we spend a lot of time together. He is actually pretty nice and hes becoming one of my best friends." I defended him.

"Potter is still in love with you, I don't know why you cant see it. I don't like it when you hang out with him, he might make a move on you." His words were slurred; it sounded like he had been drinking a little bit.

"I don't think James like me…" Then I got angry at what he said. "How do you think I feel whenever you leave and go off with Jocelyn?"

"I-… Me and—"

"Oh, I know that you leave and go off with Jocelyn so don't try to pretend you do—"

I was interrupted by Jacob smashing his face into mine. I could feel his tongue trying to get into my mouth, I didn't like it. I could also feel his hands trying to take off my shirt.

"Jacob! Stop!"

"If you want to stay with me then you are going to have to fight for me." He said before going down and kissing my neck.

I pushed him away with all my strength and he feel on the ground.

He quickly got back onto his feet as I was pulling out my wand and slapped me in the face. My hand immediately went up to my cheek and he punched me in the gut, causing me to fall over. I could not breathe. I lifted up my leg to kick him but he pushed in down on the ground and punched me in my right eye. I could not open my eye and I knew I would have a black eye tomorrow.

Squinting through my eye, I raised my wand toward him and said in my head, _Flipendo!_

Jacob suddenly flew backward and slammed against the wall.

I got up, able to breathe evenly now and walked over to him.

"You don't _ever_ touch a girl like that if she doesn't want you to, Jacob. What happened to you? I don't like you like this, Jacob, we're over!" I yelled, turning to run out of the classroom, but I turned around and punched him in the face, knocking him out then ran out of the classroom and down the hall to where I last left James.

"Lily?" I heard his soft voice but I didn't know where it came from. The tears that were running down my face were obstructing my vision too much and I slammed into another solid and fell to the ground.

"Whats the matter, Lily?" I heard his voice right by my ear; I must have run into him and he fell. All I did was wrap my arms around his neck and cry into his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't remember walking back to the dormitory and climbing into bed but when I woke up in the morning to the sun shining in my eyes. I got out of bed and noticed that I was in my dormitory.

As I put on my bathrobe and walked out to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth I remembered what happened last night and tears came to my eyes.

I heard a bellowing laugh from the common room. I washed my mouth out and went to my room to put some clothes on. It is Saturday so I quickly put on a soccer shirt that I got for playing for my Muggle school team and some sweatpants from my favorite Muggle store. I put my long, straight, bright red hair into a high pony tail and walked downstairs.

"Check mate!" I heard someone yell as I got to the bottom of the stairs. I went over to the mini refrigerator that was powered by magic and got out some pumpkin juice and poured a glass.

"Hey, Lily." James' voice came from the floor by the coffee table and I looked up. In the common room were Alice, Marlene, Mary, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Frank and James. Remus and James had just finished a game of Wizard Chess that Remus had won.

"Hi," My voice cracked and I cleared my throat before taking a sip of the pumpkin juice and walking over to sit on the couch next to Marlene. She wrapped her arm around me and I wrested my head on her shoulder, a friendly gesture.

"Hey, girl, how did you sleep?" Marlene asked and then for the first time she looked down at me. "Omigod, Lily! What happened to your face?" As she said it everyone turned their heads toward me and they all gasped.

"Oh, nothing." The subject was dropped.

I could tell that they were trying to keep from asking me what had happened last night so I put them out of their misery.

"Jacob and I broke up, guys."

"Oh, well maybe you just weren't his type, Lily; I mean he wasn't really your type either." I could hear in Alice's voice that she thought that he broke up with me.

I started playing with the tips of my pony tail, something I always did whenever I had my hair up.

"I-I broke up with him, its ok guys, really." There was a moment of silence and I really wanted to change the subject. "What are we doing today?" I pulled away from Marlene and pulled my legs up so I was sitting criss-cross of the couch.

"Er," James looked at me skeptically. "we were just planning to hang around, but Lily, is your face ok?" James pointed to right under my eye. I touched my eye and it was sore. I quickly walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; all around my eyes was black, my cheek was swollen and there was a cut on my lip. I tried to put makeup on my face to cover it but I was interrupted.

"Did he do that to you?" James' voice caught me off guard and I turned around to see him. His words came out in a dangerous whisper. I nodded. His hands clenched into fists and he closed his eyes while taking a deep breath.

"Don't worry; his face shouldn't be clean either." I smiled at him. He opened his eyes and laughed.

"I hope you hurt him." He said before leaving the bathroom. I took a deep breath and walked out.

"Do you guys want to go down to breakfast?" Sirius asked once I got out from the bathroom. Everyone nodded and we started walking down.

The day outside was warm, as it was still September. While we were walking down we separated into our own little groups and James and I started walking together.

"I'm really excited to Quidditch to start. I am holding tryouts next week and only two of our players graduated last year so I think we will still be a pretty good team," Then he started to raise his voice. "As long as our star beater doesn't get detention on the day of the Championship game then we will be fine this year." I giggled to myself as I knew that he was talking loudly so Sirius could hear him because Sirius was the star beater that he was talking about.

By then we had made it down to the Dining Hall and we sat in our usual spots; Marlene on my left, Alice on my right, Frank next to Alice, Mary on the other side of Marlene, James across from me, Sirius on his right, Remus on his left and Peter next to Sirus so he was across from Frank.

I grabbed some strawberry covered waffles and poured some maple syrup on them and started eating it. I didn't realize how hungry I was until the food was in my mouth.

"Did you guys finish the History of Magic homework that in due on Monday?" I had asked when I finished one waffle.

Everyone nodded except Sirius who had a terrified look on his face.

"We had History of Magic Homework?"

"Yes, Sirius, we had to write twelve centimeters of parchment of what we remembered from fifth year about Giant Wars." James told Sirius. James changing his attitude hasn't just gotten me to like him but it had also made the teachers like him because he does his homework and actually tries in classes, but he is still on McGonagall's bad side because hes a Marauder and he still does plenty of pranks.

"Lily?" I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. It was Jacob. My stomach dropped and I heard James growl. I stood up, not being able to believe that he was confronting me.

"Hey, nice shiner you got there." James said while chewing on bacon.

"Very funny, Potter." Jacob hissed.

James snickered to himself.

"What do you want?" There was venom in my voice. He flinched.

"I, er, just wanted to say sorry." He stuffed his hands in his pockets awkwardly.

I huffed in surprise. Tears welled up in my eyes and I took a deep breath. I looked at James. He slightly nodded and I turned back to Jacob.

"_Sorry?_ Sorry is all you can say? Well, I have something to say to you. Look at my face, Jacob. _Look at it!" _I didn't realize I was yelling until after I gave a moment for Jacob to look at my face, I could tell that he was looking at my black eye, swollen cheek, and split lip. "You did this to me last night, after trying to get me to shag you. I want you to feel guilty about what you did to me. I will let the tears fall in front of the whole school _so you can feel guilty_ about how much you hurt me. Look me in the eye, Jacob. No matter how many times you say sorry, it will never be ok that you abused your girlfriend—"

"I had had a little bit to drink, you cant blame m—"He interrupted me and I scoffed.

"Just because you were _drunk _doesn't make it ok." I looked over to the Hufflepuff table and looked Jocelyn in the eye. "You can have him all you want; I don't want someone who beats his girlfriend for not shagging him."

When I finished talking Jocelyn stood up and walked over to where Jacob and I stood. As she walked over here I looked around the Great Hall and noticed that it was silent and every head was turned towards me. I looked over at the Slytherin table out of habit and saw Snape looking at me with sympathy mixed with hate towards Jacob.

I looked back at Jocelyn walking over to us and I looked at James. I knew what was coming and he was getting ready to jump out of his seat and walk out of the Great Hall with me.

Jocelyn marched right up to Jacob, took his face in her bony hands and kissed him right on the lips.

I crossed my arms and put all my weight into my right foot, waiting for them to be done.

After a couple seconds Jocelyn let go of his face, put his arm around her neck, put her arm around his waist and molded to his muscular figure.

"Just to let you know, we have had snogging sessions once a week sense you guys started dating." She smiled at me cruelly. I don't honestly see what guys see in her. Yes, she is skinny but she is the type of person that is too skinny and had no muscle. Her being so skinny causes her to have no boobs but she tries to flaunt them. Her hair is always straight but you can tell that it is naturally curly because you can see the creases in her hair where she straightens it. Her hair is all black and she is Hispanic. She wears too much eyeliner so it makes her look like a slut, but it fits her just fine.

"Great to hear that. The bitch and the ass who hits his girlfriend, you guys would make a perfect couple." My voice cracked at the end of the sentence. I could tell that James knew it was the time to leave because I heard clatter of glasses hitting together and then a warm arm wrap around my waist. I ducked my head down, holding the tears that were threatening to spill over in my eyes and walked out of the Great Hall.

I didn't really know where we were going but I was letting James lead the way.

"Cinderella." I heard his deep voice speak. Suddenly, I collapsed under my own weight and I fell to the ground. I felt James' arms wrap under my knees and around my neck and he picked me up. We walked over to the love seat that was across from the couch and he sat down. I curled up in his lap and he let me cry for the next three days.

**o.O.o**

"Lily, you need to get up." I felt someone shake my shoulders. I grunted and rolled over.

It was Tuesday. James had let me skip classes yesterday but he made me promise that I would go today. I only said yes because I had no classes with Jacob and all my classes with James today.

I hadn't realized until then that James is the best friend that I could have asked for. It had only been a week sense we got to school but now that he was acting how he really is, we have bonded. All weekend we just sat on the love seat and we talked, sometimes, randomly a wave of sorrow would hit me and I would go back to crying for thirty minutes. But, James would never let me go. The only time that he did was when either of us had to take a shower, go to the bathroom or when he got so hungry that his stomach sounded like a monster and I made him go get us food. He even changed the password to our common room so our friends could not come in; he even ignored Sirius when he wanted to hang out. I should be very grateful.

"Come on, Lily, we have to go to classes. I even let you sleep in and get no breakfast. Classes start in thirty minutes." He shook my shoulder slightly. I let my eyes flutter open.

I groaned and rolled out of my bed. He chuckled a little as I landed face first on the ground with a loud thump. I lifted my head from the ground and pushed myself up.

"Good morning, Sleepy Head." I looked up, the brightness from the sun outside my window caused me to squint my eyes but I could tell that he was smiling just from the way he was talking.

"James, I want to thank you for staying with me for the past couple days." I sat on my bed, feeling embarrassed.

"There is no need to be thankful; the pleasure was all mine, my lady." He bowed and I laughed at his silliness.

After we got past out jokes I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; my lip was all healed, the swelling in my cheek had gone down to normal and the bruise around my eye had turned to a yellowish-green. I put my messy mane that I call hair into a messy bun, brushed my teeth and went back to my room to get dressed.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This chapter is really long and I hope you like it, but I just kept writing and writing. I am also extremely sorry about not updating. I really have no excuse. I also had the material to post, I don't know why I didn't. I have been playing volleyball and I am so extremely busy with that, hanging with my friends, and school. But my middle school made a volleyball team and tomorrow we have to go down to help them practice but before practice we are allowed to go visit our old teachers so I'm gunna go visit my old band teacher because I miss him so much. Also, my best friend that is going to prep-school is going to be coming home for the first time this weekend and I miss him so much it hurts, I cant wait to see him.**

I don't remember walking back to the dormitory and climbing into bed but when I woke up in the morning to the sun shining in my eyes. I got out of bed and noticed that I was in my dormitory.

As I put on my bathrobe and walked out to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth I remembered what happened last night and tears came to my eyes.

I heard a bellowing laugh from the common room. I washed my mouth out and went to my room to put some clothes on. It is Saturday so I quickly put on a soccer shirt that I got for playing for my Muggle school team and some sweatpants from my favorite Muggle store. I put my long, straight, bright red hair into a high pony tail and walked downstairs.

"Check mate!" I heard someone yell as I got to the bottom of the stairs. I went over to the mini refrigerator that was powered by magic and got out some pumpkin juice and poured a glass.

"Hey, Lily." James' voice came from the floor by the coffee table and I looked up. In the common room were Alice, Marlene, Mary, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Frank and James. Remus and James had just finished a game of Wizard Chess that Remus had won.

"Hi," My voice cracked and I cleared my throat before taking a sip of the pumpkin juice and walking over to sit on the couch next to Marlene. She wrapped her arm around me and I wrested my head on her shoulder, a friendly gesture.

"Hey, girl, how did you sleep?" Marlene asked and then for the first time she looked down at me. "Omigod, Lily! What happened to your face?" As she said it everyone turned their heads toward me and they all gasped.

"Oh, nothing." The subject was dropped.

I could tell that they were trying to keep from asking me what had happened last night so I put them out of their misery.

"Jacob and I broke up, guys."

"Oh, well maybe you just weren't his type, Lily; I mean he wasn't really your type either." I could hear in Alice's voice that she thought that he broke up with me.

I started playing with the tips of my pony tail, something I always did whenever I had my hair up.

"I-I broke up with him, its ok guys, really." There was a moment of silence and I really wanted to change the subject. "What are we doing today?" I pulled away from Marlene and pulled my legs up so I was sitting criss-cross of the couch.

"Er," James looked at me skeptically. "we were just planning to hang around, but Lily, is your face ok?" James pointed to right under my eye. I touched my eye and it was sore. I quickly walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; all around my eyes was black, my cheek was swollen and there was a cut on my lip. I tried to put makeup on my face to cover it but I was interrupted.

"Did he do that to you?" James' voice caught me off guard and I turned around to see him. His words came out in a dangerous whisper. I nodded. His hands clenched into fists and he closed his eyes while taking a deep breath.

"Don't worry; his face shouldn't be clean either." I smiled at him. He opened his eyes and laughed.

"I hope you hurt him." He said before leaving the bathroom. I took a deep breath and walked out.

"Do you guys want to go down to breakfast?" Sirius asked once I got out from the bathroom. Everyone nodded and we started walking down.

The day outside was warm, as it was still September. While we were walking down we separated into our own little groups and James and I started walking together.

"I'm really excited to Quidditch to start. I am holding tryouts next week and only two of our players graduated last year so I think we will still be a pretty good team," Then he started to raise his voice. "As long as our star beater doesn't get detention on the day of the Championship game then we will be fine this year." I giggled to myself as I knew that he was talking loudly so Sirius could hear him because Sirius was the star beater that he was talking about.

By then we had made it down to the Dining Hall and we sat in our usual spots; Marlene on my left, Alice on my right, Frank next to Alice, Mary on the other side of Marlene, James across from me, Sirius on his right, Remus on his left and Peter next to Sirus so he was across from Frank.

I grabbed some strawberry covered waffles and poured some maple syrup on them and started eating it. I didn't realize how hungry I was until the food was in my mouth.

"Did you guys finish the History of Magic homework that in due on Monday?" I had asked when I finished one waffle.

Everyone nodded except Sirius who had a terrified look on his face.

"We had History of Magic Homework?"

"Yes, Sirius, we had to write twelve centimeters of parchment of what we remembered from fifth year about Giant Wars." James told Sirius. James changing his attitude hasn't just gotten me to like him but it had also made the teachers like him because he does his homework and actually tries in classes, but he is still on McGonagall's bad side because hes a Marauder and he still does plenty of pranks.

"Lily?" I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. It was Jacob. My stomach dropped and I heard James growl. I stood up, not being able to believe that he was confronting me.

"Hey, nice shiner you got there." James said while chewing on bacon.

"Very funny, Potter." Jacob hissed.

James snickered to himself.

"What do you want?" There was venom in my voice. He flinched.

"I, er, just wanted to say sorry." He stuffed his hands in his pockets awkwardly.

I huffed in surprise. Tears welled up in my eyes and I took a deep breath. I looked at James. He slightly nodded and I turned back to Jacob.

"_Sorry?_ Sorry is all you can say? Well, I have something to say to you. Look at my face, Jacob. _Look at it!" _I didn't realize I was yelling until after I gave a moment for Jacob to look at my face, I could tell that he was looking at my black eye, swollen cheek, and split lip. "You did this to me last night, after trying to get me to shag you. I want you to feel guilty about what you did to me. I will let the tears fall in front of the whole school _so you can feel guilty_ about how much you hurt me. Look me in the eye, Jacob. No matter how many times you say sorry, it will never be ok that you abused your girlfriend—"

"I had had a little bit to drink, you cant blame m—"He interrupted me and I scoffed.

"Just because you were _drunk _doesn't make it ok." I looked over to the Hufflepuff table and looked Jocelyn in the eye. "You can have him all you want; I don't want someone who beats his girlfriend for not shagging him."

When I finished talking Jocelyn stood up and walked over to where Jacob and I stood. As she walked over here I looked around the Great Hall and noticed that it was silent and every head was turned towards me. I looked over at the Slytherin table out of habit and saw Snape looking at me with sympathy mixed with hate towards Jacob.

I looked back at Jocelyn walking over to us and I looked at James. I knew what was coming and he was getting ready to jump out of his seat and walk out of the Great Hall with me.

Jocelyn marched right up to Jacob, took his face in her bony hands and kissed him right on the lips.

I crossed my arms and put all my weight into my right foot, waiting for them to be done.

After a couple seconds Jocelyn let go of his face, put his arm around her neck, put her arm around his waist and molded to his muscular figure.

"Just to let you know, we have had snogging sessions once a week sense you guys started dating." She smiled at me cruelly. I don't honestly see what guys see in her. Yes, she is skinny but she is the type of person that is too skinny and had no muscle. Her being so skinny causes her to have no boobs but she tries to flaunt them. Her hair is always straight but you can tell that it is naturally curly because you can see the creases in her hair where she straightens it. Her hair is all black and she is Hispanic. She wears too much eyeliner so it makes her look like a slut, but it fits her just fine.

"Great to hear that. The bitch and the ass who hits his girlfriend, you guys would make a perfect couple." My voice cracked at the end of the sentence. I could tell that James knew it was the time to leave because I heard clatter of glasses hitting together and then a warm arm wrap around my waist. I ducked my head down, holding the tears that were threatening to spill over in my eyes and walked out of the Great Hall.

I didn't really know where we were going but I was letting James lead the way.

"Cinderella." I heard his deep voice speak. Suddenly, I collapsed under my own weight and I fell to the ground. I felt James' arms wrap under my knees and around my neck and he picked me up. We walked over to the love seat that was across from the couch and he sat down. I curled up in his lap and he let me cry for the next three days.

**o.O.o**

"Lily, you need to get up." I felt someone shake my shoulders. I grunted and rolled over.

It was Tuesday. James had let me skip classes yesterday but he made me promise that I would go today. I only said yes because I had no classes with Jacob and all my classes with James today.

I hadn't realized until then that James is the best friend that I could have asked for. It had only been a week sense we got to school but now that he was acting how he really is, we have bonded. All weekend we just sat on the love seat and we talked, sometimes, randomly a wave of sorrow would hit me and I would go back to crying for thirty minutes. But, James would never let me go. The only time that he did was when either of us had to take a shower, go to the bathroom or when he got so hungry that his stomach sounded like a monster and I made him go get us food. He even changed the password to our common room so our friends could not come in; he even ignored Sirius when he wanted to hang out. I should be very grateful.

"Come on, Lily, we have to go to classes. I even let you sleep in and get no breakfast. Classes start in thirty minutes." He shook my shoulder slightly. I let my eyes flutter open.

I groaned and rolled out of my bed. He chuckled a little as I landed face first on the ground with a loud thump. I lifted my head from the ground and pushed myself up.

"Good morning, Sleepy Head." I looked up, the brightness from the sun outside my window caused me to squint my eyes but I could tell that he was smiling just from the way he was talking.

"James, I want to thank you for staying with me for the past couple days." I sat on my bed, feeling embarrassed.

"There is no need to be thankful; the pleasure was all mine, my lady." He bowed and I laughed at his silliness.

After we got past out jokes I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; my lip was all healed, the swelling in my cheek had gone down to normal and the bruise around my eye had turned to a yellowish-green. I put my messy mane that I call hair into a messy bun, brushed my teeth and went back to my room to get dressed. I don't remember walking back to the dormitory and climbing into bed but when I woke up in the morning to the sun shining in my eyes. I got out of bed and noticed that I was in my dormitory.

As I put on my bathrobe and walked out to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth I remembered what happened last night and tears came to my eyes.

I heard a bellowing laugh from the common room. I washed my mouth out and went to my room to put some clothes on. It is Saturday so I quickly put on a soccer shirt that I got for playing for my Muggle school team and some sweatpants from my favorite Muggle store. I put my long, straight, bright red hair into a high pony tail and walked downstairs.

"Check mate!" I heard someone yell as I got to the bottom of the stairs. I went over to the mini refrigerator that was powered by magic and got out some pumpkin juice and poured a glass.

"Hey, Lily." James' voice came from the floor by the coffee table and I looked up. In the common room were Alice, Marlene, Mary, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Frank and James. Remus and James had just finished a game of Wizard Chess that Remus had won.

"Hi," My voice cracked and I cleared my throat before taking a sip of the pumpkin juice and walking over to sit on the couch next to Marlene. She wrapped her arm around me and I wrested my head on her shoulder, a friendly gesture.

"Hey, girl, how did you sleep?" Marlene asked and then for the first time she looked down at me. "Omigod, Lily! What happened to your face?" As she said it everyone turned their heads toward me and they all gasped.

"Oh, nothing." The subject was dropped.

I could tell that they were trying to keep from asking me what had happened last night so I put them out of their misery.

"Jacob and I broke up, guys."

"Oh, well maybe you just weren't his type, Lily; I mean he wasn't really your type either." I could hear in Alice's voice that she thought that he broke up with me.

I started playing with the tips of my pony tail, something I always did whenever I had my hair up.

"I-I broke up with him, its ok guys, really." There was a moment of silence and I really wanted to change the subject. "What are we doing today?" I pulled away from Marlene and pulled my legs up so I was sitting criss-cross of the couch.

"Er," James looked at me skeptically. "we were just planning to hang around, but Lily, is your face ok?" James pointed to right under my eye. I touched my eye and it was sore. I quickly walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; all around my eyes was black, my cheek was swollen and there was a cut on my lip. I tried to put makeup on my face to cover it but I was interrupted.

"Did he do that to you?" James' voice caught me off guard and I turned around to see him. His words came out in a dangerous whisper. I nodded. His hands clenched into fists and he closed his eyes while taking a deep breath.

"Don't worry; his face shouldn't be clean either." I smiled at him. He opened his eyes and laughed.

"I hope you hurt him." He said before leaving the bathroom. I took a deep breath and walked out.

"Do you guys want to go down to breakfast?" Sirius asked once I got out from the bathroom. Everyone nodded and we started walking down.

The day outside was warm, as it was still September. While we were walking down we separated into our own little groups and James and I started walking together.

"I'm really excited to Quidditch to start. I am holding tryouts next week and only two of our players graduated last year so I think we will still be a pretty good team," Then he started to raise his voice. "As long as our star beater doesn't get detention on the day of the Championship game then we will be fine this year." I giggled to myself as I knew that he was talking loudly so Sirius could hear him because Sirius was the star beater that he was talking about.

By then we had made it down to the Dining Hall and we sat in our usual spots; Marlene on my left, Alice on my right, Frank next to Alice, Mary on the other side of Marlene, James across from me, Sirius on his right, Remus on his left and Peter next to Sirus so he was across from Frank.

I grabbed some strawberry covered waffles and poured some maple syrup on them and started eating it. I didn't realize how hungry I was until the food was in my mouth.

"Did you guys finish the History of Magic homework that in due on Monday?" I had asked when I finished one waffle.

Everyone nodded except Sirius who had a terrified look on his face.

"We had History of Magic Homework?"

"Yes, Sirius, we had to write twelve centimeters of parchment of what we remembered from fifth year about Giant Wars." James told Sirius. James changing his attitude hasn't just gotten me to like him but it had also made the teachers like him because he does his homework and actually tries in classes, but he is still on McGonagall's bad side because hes a Marauder and he still does plenty of pranks.

"Lily?" I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. It was Jacob. My stomach dropped and I heard James growl. I stood up, not being able to believe that he was confronting me.

"Hey, nice shiner you got there." James said while chewing on bacon.

"Very funny, Potter." Jacob hissed.

James snickered to himself.

"What do you want?" There was venom in my voice. He flinched.

"I, er, just wanted to say sorry." He stuffed his hands in his pockets awkwardly.

I huffed in surprise. Tears welled up in my eyes and I took a deep breath. I looked at James. He slightly nodded and I turned back to Jacob.

"_Sorry?_ Sorry is all you can say? Well, I have something to say to you. Look at my face, Jacob. _Look at it!" _I didn't realize I was yelling until after I gave a moment for Jacob to look at my face, I could tell that he was looking at my black eye, swollen cheek, and split lip. "You did this to me last night, after trying to get me to shag you. I want you to feel guilty about what you did to me. I will let the tears fall in front of the whole school _so you can feel guilty_ about how much you hurt me. Look me in the eye, Jacob. No matter how many times you say sorry, it will never be ok that you abused your girlfriend—"

"I had had a little bit to drink, you cant blame m—"He interrupted me and I scoffed.

"Just because you were _drunk _doesn't make it ok." I looked over to the Hufflepuff table and looked Jocelyn in the eye. "You can have him all you want; I don't want someone who beats his girlfriend for not shagging him."

When I finished talking Jocelyn stood up and walked over to where Jacob and I stood. As she walked over here I looked around the Great Hall and noticed that it was silent and every head was turned towards me. I looked over at the Slytherin table out of habit and saw Snape looking at me with sympathy mixed with hate towards Jacob.

I looked back at Jocelyn walking over to us and I looked at James. I knew what was coming and he was getting ready to jump out of his seat and walk out of the Great Hall with me.

Jocelyn marched right up to Jacob, took his face in her bony hands and kissed him right on the lips.

I crossed my arms and put all my weight into my right foot, waiting for them to be done.

After a couple seconds Jocelyn let go of his face, put his arm around her neck, put her arm around his waist and molded to his muscular figure.

"Just to let you know, we have had snogging sessions once a week sense you guys started dating." She smiled at me cruelly. I don't honestly see what guys see in her. Yes, she is skinny but she is the type of person that is too skinny and had no muscle. Her being so skinny causes her to have no boobs but she tries to flaunt them. Her hair is always straight but you can tell that it is naturally curly because you can see the creases in her hair where she straightens it. Her hair is all black and she is Hispanic. She wears too much eyeliner so it makes her look like a slut, but it fits her just fine.

"Great to hear that. The bitch and the ass who hits his girlfriend, you guys would make a perfect couple." My voice cracked at the end of the sentence. I could tell that James knew it was the time to leave because I heard clatter of glasses hitting together and then a warm arm wrap around my waist. I ducked my head down, holding the tears that were threatening to spill over in my eyes and walked out of the Great Hall.

I didn't really know where we were going but I was letting James lead the way.

"Cinderella." I heard his deep voice speak. Suddenly, I collapsed under my own weight and I fell to the ground. I felt James' arms wrap under my knees and around my neck and he picked me up. We walked over to the love seat that was across from the couch and he sat down. I curled up in his lap and he let me cry for the next three days.

**o.O.o**

"Lily, you need to get up." I felt someone shake my shoulders. I grunted and rolled over.

It was Tuesday. James had let me skip classes yesterday but he made me promise that I would go today. I only said yes because I had no classes with Jacob and all my classes with James today.

I hadn't realized until then that James is the best friend that I could have asked for. It had only been a week sense we got to school but now that he was acting how he really is, we have bonded. All weekend we just sat on the love seat and we talked, sometimes, randomly a wave of sorrow would hit me and I would go back to crying for thirty minutes. But, James would never let me go. The only time that he did was when either of us had to take a shower, go to the bathroom or when he got so hungry that his stomach sounded like a monster and I made him go get us food. He even changed the password to our common room so our friends could not come in; he even ignored Sirius when he wanted to hang out. I should be very grateful.

"Come on, Lily, we have to go to classes. I even let you sleep in and get no breakfast. Classes start in thirty minutes." He shook my shoulder slightly. I let my eyes flutter open.

I groaned and rolled out of my bed. He chuckled a little as I landed face first on the ground with a loud thump. I lifted my head from the ground and pushed myself up.

"Good morning, Sleepy Head." I looked up, the brightness from the sun outside my window caused me to squint my eyes but I could tell that he was smiling just from the way he was talking.

"James, I want to thank you for staying with me for the past couple days." I sat on my bed, feeling embarrassed.

"There is no need to be thankful; the pleasure was all mine, my lady." He bowed and I laughed at his silliness.

After we got past out jokes I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror; my lip was all healed, the swelling in my cheek had gone down to normal and the bruise around my eye had turned to a yellowish-green. I put my messy mane that I call hair into a messy bun, brushed my teeth and went back to my room to get dressed. "James, close your mouth; people are staring." I whispered to him once we were close enough. He closed his mouth but opened it again to speak.

"Lily, they aren't staring at me, they are staring at _you!_ I mean look at you! You look beautiful!" He laughed a little, pulling the corner of his mouth up into a half smile. "Are you ready to leave?"

"Yeah." I said and I hooked my hand around his bicep. He was very strong.

We walked out of the Gryffindor common room and walked down to the dungeons where Slughorn held his parties.

Suddenly I got a whiff of the smell that I had smelled earlier. The mysterious smell from the Amortentia. Laundry detergent and the men's cologne: citrus, ginger and pepper. I shook it off as we walked into the party.

The decorations for these parties were always over done, I think. There was a buffet of food on the back wall of the room. There were only green lights so you practically just saw everything as green. There were green Christmas lights hung all around the room. There was a chocolate fountain and some fruit next to it. There was a band and the dance floor took up most of the place. There were no chairs to sit down. Everyone was already there when James and I arrived so we walked in not trying to get attention towards us.

"Hey! You're here!" Marlene said dragging Sirius over with her; they must have been dancing because Marlene still had a little skip in her step.

"Hey, guys." I said to them. It was the first time that I had seen Sirius in a full suit and he looked hansom but not nearly as hansom as James. I didn't realize until tonight just how attractive he was. I looked at him and he looked down at me.

Even though I was wearing four-inch heels James still was about four inches taller than me.

"Do you want to dance?" James asked me. He had to shout over the music. I nodded. He grabbed my hand and he brought me over to the giant dance floor.

The music was very upbeat so James and I danced our hearts out for a couple minutes with each other.

When the last song stopped a slow song came on.

"Will you do me the honor, Lily Evans, and dance with me?" He held out his hand and I took it without hesitation. He wrapped my arms around his neck and wrapped his arms around my waist. We looked each other in the eyes and he started dancing.

"Why aren't you dancing, Lily?" He stopped moving his feet.

"I, er, don't know how to dance." I said awkwardly. He laughed a little.

"Its ok, just follow my lead." He started dancing again and I looked down at my feet trying to follow his. He picked one of his hands up and lifted my chin so I was looking him in the eyes again. We just stood there dancing for a couple minutes, looking into each other's eyes.

"I am having so much fun, Lily." He said, smiling the half smile again.

"Me, too, James." I said and I placed my head down on his chest. I breathed in and I smelled the smell again. Laundry detergent and citrus, pepper, and ginger. I realized at that moment that I had been smelling James in the potion. The song ended and changed to a fast one but we continued dancing together in each other's arms.

"Lily, what did you smell when you smelled the Amortentia?" He asked as if he knew what I was thinking about. I looked up at him.

"The smell from my house, my shampoo, the smell of a Thanksgiving feast and…" I hesitated on telling him my last smell, I didn't know if it meant anything or I just liked the smell of him. "I, er, smelled, um, you." I said and I looked down at his chest.

He lifted my chin with his finger again.

"The only thing I smelled was you." He said. I looked at his eyes again and realized that they were a beautiful hazel. I looked down at his lips and licked mine. I looked back up at his eyes and I got butterflies in my stomach. What was I doing? Was I leaning in? This is James Freaking Potter. I am thinking about kissing him. I am not only thinking, I am wanting to kiss James Freaking Potter. What happened to me hating him? He showed who he really is, is what happened.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hey guys! I hope you liked the last chapter I had fun writing it. Here is another chapter just because I feel bad for not posting for so long. I'll post another chapter on Sunday and start posting every Sunday**

When our lips touched there was a connection. Like we were in sync - not too hard, but not too soft, no jamming tongues down the throat, no slobbering. His lips were so soft and formed to my lips. I could feel his tongue trace the line of my lips. I could feel my hands making their way around his head and he had his hands on my hips, holding me close to him. He had no reason to worry, I was not letting go.

"Woah, Jamsie." I heard Sirius say and I felt James starting to pull away. No, I didn't want that.

"Shut up, Sirius!" James said before coming back down to kiss me and I let him.

"Lily! What are you doing?" I heard the voice and I pulled away from James. There, right in front of us, stood Severus Snape. He was dressed in a black suit and a long tie. I hadn't seen him sense last year and he had to have grown at least three inches over the summer, his shoulders were more slouched, his hair was longer and in my opinion looked more greasy. There was hurt in his eyes, betrayal. All I could think of was that was the look I had when he had called me a mudblood that fine day back in fifth year.

"What do you want, Snape." My voice sounded cold. I turned out of James' grasp but he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

"What are you doing kissing _Potter?_ Lily, you have only been single for almost two months and then you go so low that you kiss Potter?"

"I'll have you know,_ Snape_, James was here for me when I didn't really want anyone around. I only recall you sticking up for your friends when I really needed you most. I like James; I can kiss whoever I want. Also, you have no right to tell me what I can do and cant do, remember what you did to me this summer." I then turned around and started walking out with James trailing behind me.

"Lily!" James called after me as I was running down the corridor. I didn't know where I was, somewhere around the Hufflepuff common room. I didn't really pay attention to where I was going. I had just kissed James Potter. The same James Potter that had tortured me sense first year. The same James Potter that had caused Snape so much embarrassment that he spoke his mind about me being a Muggle-born.

I turned around. I was out of breath and the picture was blurry for a minute as I saw a figure that had to be James trying to choose whether he should walk or jog to catch up to me. He finally chose to run.

My vision had cleared when he got to me and he grabbed my shoulders in a comforting way.

"Whats the matter?" He was looking from one eye of mine to the other with fear in his eyes. He could tell just by looking at my face that while I was running I was also crying because after I cry my face gets very red and blotchy.

"Snape just makes me so angry and when he defies me like that I just cant help but get angry at him. Every time I see him or have to confront him I get so nervous; all I can think about is that day after OWLs back in fifth year and I think that he is judging me… the one person that said he would never call me that… all I can think about is that he may have been thinking about me like that all of our friendship and I was just too naive to realize it." I finished my little speech. I had never told anyone this, it was something that I always liked to keep private; no one needs to know that my former best friend causes me anxiety.

I looked down at my shoes, a little embarrassed about what I had just said. He put his pointer finger on my chin and lifted my head so I was looking him in the eye.

"Hey, there is no need to be embarrassed about that; Snape was your best friend and he said something that really crushed you. I truly understand what you are feeling, even if I want to hex him into next week because of what he said." His face grew hard towards the end of his sentence.

His face quickly merged into a smile and he grabbed my hand and started walking towards a stair case.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we got to the top of the stair case.

"We are having an after-party to Slughorn's party in the Head's dorm." He reached into his pocket with the hand that was not occupied and took out a miniature figure; it looked like the king to Wizard's Chess set.

"Gryffindor 2, this is Gryffindor 1, do you copy?" He said into the piece and waited for an answer.

"Gryffindor 2 here, what do you need Gryffindor 1?" Noise came out of the chess piece and the lips moved in sync with the words. The voice that had come out sounded like Sirius' voice.

"Gryffindor 2, can you gather Gryffindor 3 and if you can find Gryffindor 4, get him too, also grab Mary, Marlene, Alice and Frank. Meet me at the Head's common room in ten minutes." James said into the piece quickly and moved it up to his ear, waiting for a response.

"Roger that, Gryffindor 2, out." James nodded and placed the chess piece back into his pocket and we continued walking down the corridor.

"What was that?" I asked in disbelief.

"Sirius and I charmed a couple of Wizard Chess pieces to act like those things you use in the Muggle world, Walker-talkers?"

"It's Walkie-talkies but go on." I laughed a little at how much knowledge James had about the Muggle world.

"Ok, whatever, we charmed them to be like walkie-talkies so we could communicate with each other and we have code names for all the Marauders."

He nodded and smiled looking proudly for what he had done.

"Well, very excellent. But, why are you having them meet us there in ten minutes?"

"We need to get the food and alcohol." He said mischievously. Suddenly, he picked up speed and I had to jog next to him to keep up with his long strides.

I was too busy trying to keep up with him and hold his hand correctly that I didn't notice where we were going.

All of a sudden James stopped right in front of a portrait of a fruit basket. He lifted his hand a put a finger on the closest fruit which was a green pear. He moved him finger up and town and the pear giggled as if James was tickling it. The pear then turned into a golden door knob and James turned the door knob and opened the door.

I opened my eyes wide in amazement, trying to get as much as I could into my small range of view. This room looked exactly like the Great Hall, the four large tables were in the same spot and so were all the dishes. The only difference was that there was a giant kitchen behind the teachers table.

"This is the kitchens." James said.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," A small little creature ran up to us and I knew it was a House Elf. He ducked his head so low that his nose almost touched the ground. "I am very sorry," He had turned to me. "but Pippy does not know your name, Miss."

"Her name is Lily Evans, Head Girl." James introduced me to the House Elf.

"It is very lovely to meet you, Ms. Evans. Is there anything Pippy can help you with?"

"Sirius, Remus, Pete and I are having a small get together with our friends tonight so we would like a platter of the normal and two dozen Butterbeers."

"Yes, Mr. Potter, Pippy can do that just don't get Pippy in trouble with Mr. Dumbledore, sir." He said before running off.

"You have them wrapped around your finger, don't you?" I laughed in amazement.

James chuckled and pulled me over to the Gryffindor table and we sat down in the middle.

"Well, that kiss," James said as we sat down. I looked at our hands and smiled.

"That kiss,"

"It was amazing. I have been waiting years to do that."

"I never thought I was going to."

I looked over at him. He was smiling. I need to tell him that I am not ready to date anyone yet. I take a deep breath and turn my body so I am facing him in the seat.

"James…"

"Hm?" He looked to me. I hated that I have to break his little happy moment, but he needs to know.

"You know that I am not ready to date yet, right?" His smile faltered and the light left his eyes just as quickly.

"What?"

"James, I have hated you for six years and we become best friends in a month. I also just broke up with my boyfriend. Yes, we can eventually date… but wait a little bit."

"I don't care what people think." He answered quickly.

"But I care about what I think of myself." I was still sitting so I was looking at him but he was sitting normally and looking down at his hands that were clenched together. I placed my hand on his clenched hands for comfort.

"Did I do anything wrong? Do you not want to be my girlfriend?" He looked up at me shamefully.

"James! No! I just want some time for myself, you know?"

"But, Lily, it has been a month almost two."

"Exactly, James," I tried to explain to him. "Maybe soon. I don't know."

"Lily?" I looked up from his hands that were turning white from this grip on them.

"Yeah?" I scooted closer to him and moved my legs so I was sitting normally again at the table. I put one of my arms under his and the other one over so I was able to put both of my hands on his hands and rest my head on his shoulder. I forced his hands open and laced my fingers with one of his hands and traced the veins that popped out of the back of it with my other hand.

"I'm sorry for all the shit that I have done to you." I looked up at his face because of the fear in his voice.

"James," I let go of him and put one of my fingers under his chin and lifted his face up so I was looking at him in the eyes. "When we do start dating, I don't want you to be terrified that I am going to break up with you all the time. I want us to be compatible. I want it to be that I am just as afraid of losing you as you are of me. I want us both to be able to step in when someone has gone too far. I also want us to stay together for the rest of our lives and we cant do that if you are living in fear the whole time that I am going to break up with you. Frankly, I should be a little more scared because of the little fan club you have running."

James didn't answer to what I said. Instead he just started to lean in like he was going to kiss me but instead I quickly kissed him on the nose and laughed at the surprise that was on his face.

"Mr. Potter and Ms. Evans?" I turned around to see the same house elf that had served us before. "Pippy has the platter and the butter beers ready for your party."

"Thank you, Pippy." James said and he grabbed the platter of different cheeses, crackers, cookies and candies. I grabbed the two dozen butter beers from the second House Elf that was right behind Pippy. They both curtsied and James and I walked out of the kitchens.

When we got back to the Head's common room, Sirius, Marlene, Remus, Mary, Alice, Frank, and Peter were all gathered around the fire place.

Marlene was sitting on Sirius' lap in the love seat and Frank had his arm around Alice as they were all chatting with each other.

When everyone heard the common room door open they turned their heads to face the hole in the wall and saw James and i.

"Hey, love birds." Sirius said. He was playing with Marlene's hair while she played with the fingers on his free hand.

"Shut up, Padfoot." James said while he placed the platter of food down on the coffee table.

"Why did you call us here?" Remus asked getting a drink of pumpkin juice from the kitchen.

"We are having an afterparty to Slughorn's party." James said putting his hands on his hips and standing up as straight as he could. I giggled at his foolishness and he turned his head to smile at me.

"As long as you guys have alcohol, I'm down for the party. So much happened tonight." Alice said, kicking off her shoes so she could sit on Frank's lap.

"What happened?" I asked, walking over to sit on the other side of Marlene and James sat next to me.

"Well, after what happened between you two, which I still cant believe happened," Sirius gestured to us as he talked. I looked at James and smiled. "After you guys left, Snape and Mulciber got into a fist fight. Mulciber was saying that Snape was acting like a woosie because you guys kissed and then Snape lost it. He threw his wand to the ground and tackled Mulciber and started pounding his face in. Snape is lucky that he is taller than Mulciber because he messed up his face pretty badly and Mulciber is going to hate him for a while."

"Snape and Mulciber fought?" I asked in disbelief. I knew that Snape was tall and lanky but I didn't think he was that much stronger than Mulciber.

"Yeah, Sirius and I were right next to them and Sirius was just watching them and laughing, I had to smack him to tell him to get Snape off." Marlene said, scowling at Sirius. He made a kissy face at her and James leaned across us and they gave each other a high five.

"Nice job, Padfoot!"

We all laughed and I looked at James. He had his signature smirk on his face, but it wasn't the one that I had always hated in the past; it was one showing that he was having a great time, he was happy with all of his friends. It made me forget about the war that was going on. I suddenly had a warm feeling in my stomach and I really wanted to just lean in and kiss him. I looked away before I could do anything.

"Can we play a game? I just want to get drunk and have fun. I never let loose and I need to." Remus said impatiently. We all looked at him in shock.

"Well, I guess we should start." James said still laughing at what Remus said. "What game should we play?"

"I have a new game. It looks like a lot of fun." I said quickly. We all agreed to play the new game. I ran upstairs to grab a deck of cards and the piece of paper that I printed the directions out on at home. When I got back downstairs everyone had gathered around the coffee table, leaving a spot for me in between Marlene and James, everyone also had a butterbeer.

"Ok, how this game works is I put this deck of cards in the middle," I held up the deck of cards for everyone to see. "then someone takes a card off the deck and depending on which card you get you have to do something." They all nodded their heads and Sirius agreed to go first.

He picked the top card of the deck and flipped it over.

"Eight." He said. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them together, waiting for his consequence.

"Ok, so, Sirius, you have to choose a category and each of us has to give a type of it. Like say you said toothpaste we would say Crest or Colgate. If we don't give an answer within five seconds we need to take a shot." I explained while I looked down at the paper.

"Fair enough," Sirius looked around the circle. To his right was Marlene and on the other side of her was me and then James was next to me, then Remus, then Mary, then Alice, then Frank and Peter was on the other side of Sirius. "I'll make it easy. Fruits."

"Marlene, you go." I said so we would always be going to the right.

"Apple.

"Grapes.

"Oranges.

"Banana."

"Um, strawberries."

"Kiwi."

"Pineapple."

"Er, lemons."

"Ok, well that was easy. Marlene pick a card." I said.

Marlene picked the top card and flipped it over.

"Four."

"Ok, so, someone asks someone a question and then they answer with a question, but you don't have to answer the person who asked you but you must say the person's name at the end or at the beginning. Whoever's name the person says they need to ask next. No repeating questions and whoever messes up first has to take five sips."

"What are you doing, Lily?" Marlene asked.

"Alice, what is Marlene talking about?" I went next.

"Frank, why is Lily so confusing." Then Alice.

"James, why can't Lily just answer Marlene's question?" Frank asked.

"Sirius, why must your girlfriend ask such confusing questions?" James laughed a little.

"What is so confusing, Pete?" Sirius turned to Peter as he asked.

"Lily, do the questions have to be on topic?" Peter asked me.

"Do you like pineapple, Mary?" I asked Mary, answering Peter's question.

"No, Lily." No one answered and Mary realized her mistake. "Shit."

"Come on Mary, you gotta take five sips." Remus teased her.

Around one in the morning James plopped down on the couch next to me. I had a cup of hot chocolate in my hand.

Nobody was that intoxicated from the games we played except after we got bored with the games Sirius and Remus had a drinking contest. Lets just say it ended with Remus running to the bathroom and throwing up. James had just gotten back from cleaning it up and sending everyone back to their dormitories.

"I don't think Dumbledore would have given these dorms to us if he knew we would be doing this type of stuff in them." James said before laughing and taking a sip of butterbeer he had in his hand.

"You never know, we might actually be being responsible. The Head's in the past might have taken advantage with this." While James was taking Remus back to the Gryffindor common room I had changed into pajama pants and a t-shirt from home. I pulled my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head.

"Did you have fun tonight?" James asked me. He looked at me and I looked back at him. His eyes were a deep hazel and looked like they had sprinkles of brown in them. He had barely any acne and his hair was flipped across his forehead like he has been doing it this year.

"Yeah, I did."

We were quite for a little bit and I looked at James. It looked like he was concentrating.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked and took his hand. It was very warm and big. I laced my fingers with his and I looked up at his eyes.

"Just something I have been thinking about for a couple days." He was looking at the fire. I looked at it and watched the orange heat dance across the wood, turning it black.

"What's that?"

"Lily, I have a question. You don't have to answer but I have just been wondering. How did your mom die?"

When the words left his mouth it was like someone had taken a hammer and pounded it against my chest like they were hitting a nail into the wall. Grief washed over me again and I took my hand away from his. My throat closed and I couldn't breathe. I had never told anyone what happened to my mom. The way she was brutally murdered. The look on her face as the light left her eyes. It had haunted my nightmares for months now. Do I want to tell him? Yes, I do. I cleared my throat and I spoke. As I spoke the memory flashed in front of my eyes.

_I was walking back to my house from the little playground that was just around the corner from my house. Snape had just tried to talk to me. I was so frustrated with him for trying to talk to me once again, trying to apologize for what he did. Tears were rolling down my cheeks when I heard a scream. It sounded like Petunia. My heart raced with adrenaline and I ran to my house. The door was open but I knew what was happening before I even started running. The scream was a scream of complete terror. _

_I ran up the walk way to my house and my heart stopped. My mother was on the ground, begging for mercy. Petunia was being held by a person in a mask in the kitchen doorway. _

"_Will you quiet her? She is going to attract attention." A voice hissed. I knew who it was and my blood boiled. Voldemort had no right to be in my house, torturing my family. _

_I got to the doorway and saw the full scene. I noticed that my dad's car was not in the drive way, Voldemort's wand was pointing at my merciful mother and he laughed cruelly as he saw me._

"_Snape, hold her so she can watch." I turned around and saw Severus behind me. His eyes looked regretful as I looked at him in disbelief._

"_You tricked me, you bastard." I spat at him. He grabbed my arms and held them behind my back. I turned my head back to Voldemort. _

"_Ok, both daughters watching? Now, time to watch your mother die, and all you have to do is blame it on her." Voldemort pointed at me and cackled. _

"_Lily, do something!" Petunia yelled. I remembered that I had my wand in my back pocket and I lifted my leg and kicked Snape in the groin. He bent over in pain, letting go of my arms. I quickly grabbed my wand out of my pocket._

"_Silly, girl. Snape, get the wand." Before I could react the wand flew out of my hand and Snape grabbed my arms again._

"_Can we get on with this?" Voldemort asked impatiently. I looked at my mother. Her eyes had so much fear in them. She mouthed "I love you." And the last thing I heard before falling to the ground was "Avada Kedavra" and the life leaving my mother's body._

_Snape let go of my arms as I fell and I blacked out._


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I'm so sorry guys. Once again i do not have an excuse for not posting. I just have been so busy with volleyball and i also got a new computer last night my it was supposed to come in the last sunday that i said i was going to post. I was waiting for it to come in for me to write. Luckily, today i have to whole day to myself, no friends over until later so i am just going to write and write and write all day long. I'll post something later jus to make up for not posting. And do the Guest who reviewed on the last chapter, Jennifer, you were not being rude. I need a wakeup call so that you:)**

I got the last words out before choking and letting the tears fall. I looked at James and he looked so angry.

"Why are you angry?"

"Snape… held you?" I nodded. He scoffed in disbelief.

"I thought he wanted to be your friend?"

"I guess it was only to stall me from going home."

James didn't talk for a couple minutes. I looked at him to make sure the he was okay. His face wasn't as tan as it usually was. His fists were clenched, veins popping out of his arms, which I found really attractive, he was staring a place where only James could see. His face was scowling and a surge of fear shot through me but I had no reason to be afraid of James, all I know that if I was the one that James was scowling at, I would be afraid.

"James?" He looked at me. Suddenly his face was back to normal, returning to his tan color. His fists unclenched but the veins that popped out remained. "Yeah?"

"What are you thinking about?" I grabbed his hand and started playing with the veins that were popping out on his hand. I had been sitting up, with my body facing James so I leaned in and put my head on his chest, leaning the rest of my body against him but I was now facing the fire, I put his arm around me and continued to play with his veins.

"Just about how much Snape betrayed you and how earlier at Slughorn's party you said that he had no right to tell you what to do and that he should remember what happened over the summer, now I understand." There was so much hate in his voice. I understand now why the Marauders have always hated Snape; they could probably see through Snape the way that I couldn't. Snape deserved all the curses that he got from the Marauders. James had always done that to show me that he actually cared for me… that Snape had a bad side to him and would someday betray me. I was so mean to him about it.

The next thing I did I never thought I would do in a thousand years. I let go of James' hand, sat up so I was back to the way I was before. I looked into his hazel eyes. Before I knew it I leaned in slowly and I brushed lips slightly against his. I pulled away and we both smiled. Suddenly James sat up so he wasn't slouching anymore; he grabbed my face and pushed our lips together. It wasn't like the kiss earlier today. The kiss earlier today James was questioning whether he should have kissed me even while he was kissing me and I could tell, he had hesitated earlier. He didn't know if I wanted to kiss him. I didn't know if I wanted to kiss him either. But this kiss, we were both certain of what we wanted. The warming feeling that I had felt in my stomach earlier was so overwhelming now that if I wasn't kissing James I would be worried about my health. My hands had no idea where to go so they were playing with his hair, messing it up but he didn't seem to care. I could feel his hands move from my face to my back, holding me in place, making sure I wasn't leaving. He didn't have to worry about me leaving.

We were standing up now. I looped my fingers through his belt loop and pulled him closer. He brought me over to the wall and pushed me up against it, moving his lips down my jaw and to my neck. I lightly let out a groan and I giggled in embarrassment, all James did was continue to kiss my neck.

After a couple minutes he moved back up to my mouth and we started kissing again. I could feel his tongue glide along my lip asking for entrance and I let his tongue slide into my mouth.

My hands found the hem of his shirt and quickly pulled it off of him. My hands graced his stomach and I could feel the contours of his six-pack.

We broke apart for the first time in about ten minutes so we could both breathe. I quickly kissed him on the nose and ran over to the couch.

"James, I'm tired." I complained to him.

"Then why don't we go to bed, Ms. Evans." He grabbed the blanket off of the love seat and sat down on the couch, spreading his legs out and I lay down next to him and within minutes fell asleep.

"_Please_ don't tell me you guys _shagged_ last night." I heard a voice screech. My eyes shot open to see Sirius and Remus standing at the common room door.

I took the blanket off of James and I and Sirius sighed in relief.

"Ok, love birds; we have to get down to the Great Hall because Jamsie and I are going to beat the Hufflepuff's asses in Quidditch today." James bent down to kiss me on the head and then we both ran up stairs. I quickly brushed my hair, brushed my teeth and changed my clothes and was down within fifteen minutes.

No one was in the common room so they must have gone down to eat; I knew James and Sirius were in a hurry.

I made my way down to the Great Hall by myself.

"Frank and I had so much fun at your party last night." Alice said to me as I sat down next to Marlene who was sitting next to Alice and Frank. Remus and Peter were on the other side of the table.

"Yeah. So did I." I agreed as I grabbed a waffle from a plate in front of Alice. "Mary, can you pass me the maple syrup?"

Once Mary handed the maple syrup to me I poured a little on the side and started cutting up my waffles.

"Umm, Lily?" I looked up from my plate and saw a bunch of smirking faces around me. Remus was trying to stifle his laughter and Frank was peering around Alice trying to look at me. Marlene was the one who was talking.

"Yeah?" I said before I placed a piece of waffle in my mouth.

She moved her finger up to my neck and pulled down the collar of my shirt, revealing my collar bone.

"Lily! It is! You have a hickey! How did you get that? Who gave you that? And Remus, why are you laughing so hard?"

"I-I don't have a hickey." I quickly pulled my shirt from out of her hands and put it back to the way it was.

"Yes, you do. Who gave it to you? Was it Jacob?" Marlene asked quickly. After Marlene said this, Remus could not hold in his laughter any longer and he erupted in laughter.

"_Remus, what is so funny?"_Marlene spat.

"Im going to let Lily tell you." Remus said, looking at me while whipping a tear from his eye. Everyone turned their heads toward me.

"Er, James gave me the hickey." I said awkwardly before brushing my hair behind my ears.

"James Potter?" Frank clarified.

I nodded.

"Sirius and I walked in on them on the couch. Sirius thought they shagged—"

"But we _didn't_." I spat.

"Are you two dating?" Peter asked. He was trembling, he always trembles but this was more than usual.

"No, we are not. But if you do not mind I would like to get a good seat on the Quidditch field so if you would let me eat." I said before stuffing three pieces of waffle in my mouth. Marlene raised her eye brow in surprise and then went back to her buttered toast.

"Lily, Snape is glaring at you." Mary said, leaning over the table so she could say it quietly.

I turned around to look at the Slytherin table to see that in fact, Snape was staring at me. It wasn't the same type of look that I had known my first five years at Hogwarts; the look of longing, the look saying that he wishes he were sitting next to me. This look had revenge all over his face; this look had hurt mixed with anger all over his face. A sudden surge of fear shot through me. He looked away from me to talk to Mulciber, whose face was covered in bruisesk.

"What is that about?" Remus asked, nodding his head towards Severus as I turned back around.

"Hes just angry at me for kissing James." I cut another piece of waffle and dipped it into the maple syrup and put it into my mouth.

"Well, I'm bloody happy!" I heard a voice to my left and then felt someone slide in next to me.

"James!" I yelled with glee and I threw my arms around him.

"Hey, Lils." He said laughing, wrapping his arms around my lower back and kissing me on the head.

"I thought you had Quidditch?" I asked, sitting up again while he put his arm around my shoulder.

"We do; we didn't really have much of a pep talk today because its against Hufflepuff so the game is pretty much just practice for us. I can't believe how well our team is doing this year, we are undefeated. But anyways, I told everyone to go have a little more breakfast and come down ten minutes before the game so we have another ten minutes to socialize." He stole the fork out of my hand and put the piece of waffle that was on it in his mouth.

"Jamessss, I was going to eat that." I pouted.

"I'm sorry, Lils, but don't you want me to be at my strongest today?"

"Well, the way that we saw it this morning," Sirius said from the right side of Remus. "you have already seen his muscles." Sirius wiggled his eye brows.

"For the last time, Sirius: Lily and I did not shag, we just snogged a little." James said while lacing his fingers in mine under the table.

"Well, look what came out of that snogging session," Marlene said, pulling down the collar of my shirt again. James saw and he snickered.

"Thanks a lot, James." I said with a smile on my face.

"You two are so adorable." Mary said.

"Well, mate, I'm sorry to say but we have to go." Sirius said, getting up from his seat.

"Yeah, ok. Well, I'll see you at the game, Lils." James stood up from his seat and leaned down, pecked me on the lips and went to gather the rest of the Quidditch team.

"And you two aren't dating?" Marlene said, raising her eye brows.

"No, we are not."

"Well, I think you will be soon." Alice giggled, grabbing Frank's hand and stood up. "Lets get down to the Quidditch pitch."

Marlene and I walked down to the Quidditch field together and sat down in the front row of the Gryffindor bleachers.

"Are you excited to actually watch James play this time?" The bleachers were starting to fill up with students who came to watch the game.

"I have always watched James, well, this year I have."

"Yeah, but now you guys are like, a thing."

"I know." I could feel the blush rising in my face.

"What happened? I remember at the beginning of this year, you hated him and then all of a sudden you guys are best friends, then you kiss him at Slughorn's party."

"Well, he realized that the way to be friends with me was to be himself. After he was himself I realized that he was actually a really funny, loyal and great person. I don't know what happened with that kiss."

"Are you guys going to date?"

"Well, I want to, because I really do fancy him. The way he makes me feel warm inside whenever he is around me. I feel so empty and the realization of the war going on behind these walls hits me so hard when he isn't around. We talked when we went to get stuff for our own party last night, I told him that I would date him but I can tell that if we were to date, he would always be on edge or afraid of me breaking up with him if he did one wrong move. He wouldn't be able to relax. I don't want him like that, so I told him, once he gets past that, we can date."

"Well, that seems like a good explanation." Marlene giggled.

"What is going on between you and Sirius? I know you guys aren't dating but last night you guys literally could not keep your hands off of each other. I don't think I ever saw one of your body parts _not_ on him."

"I don't understand what is going on between Sirius and I, although I know he really fancies me and I really fancy him and that's good enough for me."

Right then Alice sat down next to me and I heard Frank's voice over the loud speaker.

"Hellllo, Quidditch fans! Today you are watching Hufflepuff versus Gryffindor! Who's excited?" A loud roar erupted from the crowd. "Let's get started!"

As the two Quidditch teams walked out of their locker rooms onto the field. They took their positions on the ground as Frank spoke.

"Gryffindor's Quidditch team is captained by James Potter and the Hufflepuff Quidditch team is captained by Amos Diggory. Captains: walk to the middle and shake hands." James walked forward from his chaser spot and Amos walked forward from his beater position and met Madam Hooch in the middle. They shook hands and Madam Hooch flipped a coin. She lifted her arms and pointed to the side that the Gryffindor Quidditch team was defending.

"Gryffindor starts with the quaffle."

Everyone mounted their brooms and pushed off the ground into the air to their respective heights. Madam Hooch blew the whistle and threw the quaffle to James.

"And we're off. Potter starts with the ball. The Golden Snitch is released into the game along with the two bludgers. Potter passes it to Scott Johnson. Black hits a bludger to Stephen Davies who was trying to take the quaffle from Johnson and hits the tip of his broom, knocking him backwards. Johnson passes to Potter and Potter shoots—scores in the lower, right ring!"

I looked at James and he is cheering on his room and he rides back to the Gryffindor side of the field. We lock eyes and he winks at me, I giggle and clap along with the crowd.

"10-0 Gryffindor. The quaffle is given to Mark MacMillan, one of Hufflepuff's chasers and they start flying. Potter flies up to MacMillan and takes the quaffle. He soars up the field towards the rings and quickly passes it to Johnson who shoots and scores!"

James and Scott race back up the field. James looks at me again and winks again with his half smile, I wink back.

"20-0 Gryffindor. The quaffle is given back to Hufflepuff. They fly up the field towards the Gryffindor posts. All three Hufflepuff chasers fly past the Gryffindor players and corner the Keeper. MacMillan shoots for the lower right loop but the Gryffindor Keeper grabs it and throws the quaffle to the third Gryffindor Chaser, George Spinnet. All three chasers race up the field past the Hufflepuff defenders, Spinnet passes to Potter, Potter shoots and scores! Second time for Potter today. Gryffindor winning 30-0."

This time when James is soaring back up the field he blows me a kiss. I pretend to grab it and place my hand on my cheek. I can see his face light up and tell that he is laughing.

I look around the four bleachers for all the houses and my eyes land on the Slytherin house who are not clapping at all. Next, my eyes land on Severus. His face is so red with anger that it could be boiling.

Severus looked at me and then back at James. I could not move my eyes from Severus. He pulled his wand out of his robes and held it up in front of him.

I knew what was happening before I could stop it. A white light shot out of the end of Severus' wand. I recognized the light as a spell that Severus had made back in our fifth year. _Sectum Sempra. _A spell that acts as a muggle sword and slices the victum.

My heart raced as the spell shot toward the field and I knew who it was going to.

"_JAMES!" _I shouted trying to warn him but the crowd was too loud, he would never be able to hear me.

Suddlenly, a red line grew on the side of James' clothing and he fell off of his broom.

"_Aresto Momentum!_" I shouted when I grabbed my wand out of my robes. James slowly started falling towards the ground. I stood up quickly and ran down the stairs that led to the Quidditch field. I ran as fast as I could to where James fell. I did not care if the game kept going; if these cuts were not cared for them James would die.


	7. Chapter 7

When I got to him he was on his back and I kneeled next to him. I quickly examined his cuts. There were little cuts here and there on his face and hands but the one that worried me most was the giant slice on the right side of his body that was bleeding excessively.

"Lily, move." I heard a voice from behind me and I let out a sob. It was Dumbledore I had to listen to him. I stood on my feet and backed up so I was where Dumbledore stood.

He quickly knelt down next to James and took out his wand.

"_Vulnera Sanentur."_

I don't know what I expected to do to James if Dumbledore had not come to help him; I didn't even know if Severus had made a countercurse to the spell. But, one thing I knew was that if Severus had made a countercurse, Dumbledore knew.

Slowly, the blood stopped seeping out of his side and the color returned to James' face.

His eyes fluttered open and he whispered one word before falling unconscious again. "Lily."

"Lily, you need to come down and have dinner." Marlene said, pulling on my arm.

"For the last time, Marlene, no! I am staying with James until he wakes up, no matter how long it takes." I was still looking at James.

I sat next to one of the beds in the Hospital Wing. This chair has been my best friend for the past thirty hours, the only time I got up was when Marlene had, literally, forced me to come down to dinner yesterday. The way James looked; he always looked like he would wake up in five more minutes. A couple times he whispered my name and my heart started racing, thinking that he had woken up but realized he had just talked in his sleep, but a smile still grew on my face.

"Lily, this isn't healthy. You haven't eaten in almost twenty-four hours. James wont be able to tell if you leave his bedside for at least—"

She got interrupted by the sound of the Hospital Wing's doors opening and two people walking in, carrying a third man.

The man that looked to be unconscious was Mulciber. One man carrying him was Evan Rosier.

My heart stopped and anger grew throughout my body as I saw who was the third man.

Severus Snape.

"Oh, bring him to the bed, dear." Madam Pomfrey said and she stumbled out of her office. "What happened?"

"He got attacked by the Whomping Willow." Rosier said as he and Severus placed Mulciber down on the bed.

"Shouldn't he know by now never to go near that thing?" She said as she was quickly clearing his cuts.

Severus looked at me and our eyes held for a second before I started to growl.

"Woah, Lily-Flower," Sirius said from the other side of James' bed.

I turned away from Severus and looked at James, peacefully sleeping. I started to feel calm until I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see that is was Severus.

"How's he doing?" He asked me in just above a whisper.

I looked at him in disbelief.

"Oh, I don't know. You did invent that spell, and casted it!" I had turned my whole body towards Snape now I had every one in the room's attention because I was yelling.

"I did not cast that, Lily." He scoffed, crossing his arm and trying to act cool.

"Who else would it have been? You are a coward, _Snape!"_ I spat his name at him . "You cant deal with the idea of James and I dating. Just because you hurt him doesn't change the fact that he is here for me when you aren't. That doesn't change the fact that I chose him over you. Do we need to go back to the summer and replay what you did to me; that you helped Lord Voldemort kill my mother! You helped him, Severus. I knew that we had been growing apart sense we came to Hogwarts but I never, _ever,_ thought that you would go so low. You are a coward, Snape. You have no right to ask if he is ok or not, because you meant for him to be _not _ok." I huffed and walked out of the Hospital Wing.

I didn't really know where I was planning to go. I didn't really want to go back to the Head's common room so I decided to sit on the edge of the Black Lake.

When I got there I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants so they were above my calves and stuck my feet in the water. It was cold at first but after about five minutes of sitting there the water was warm.

To keep my mind off of things I took my wand out and started making lilies in the water.

I made them all different colors; white, yellow, purple, blue, red, orange, pink and violet. After I made the violet color I changed the color to white because Violet was my mom's name and I cringed at the thought of her.

After about twenty minutes of this I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw that it was James.

"Hey," He said quietly. He sat down next to me, took off his sneakers and socks and stuck his feet in the water also. "The water is a little chilly, dont'cha thing?"

I nodded and continued to make my rainbow of lilies.

"Thanks for sticking up for me in there." He said as he watched me make a white lily.

"You were awake?" I asked without looking at him.

"Yeah. I was starting to come back into consciousness and after you left I fully woke. Sirius told me you never left my side."

"Yeah, I guess. I was really scared that we hadn't gotten to you in enough time. I know the spell that Severus used on you and you can die from it."

"Snape made that spell?

"Yeah," I answered. I put my wand back in my robes and watched as the hundreds of lilies drift farther out into the middle of the Black Lake. "He made it back in fifth year. That was when I started to get really worried about our friendship."

"Lily, I am really sorry about what happened after OWLs if fifth year." I looked at him. He was still a little pale from the blood loss but not nearly as pale as yesterday. His hair was a little messy so he wasn't able to flip it but he had put on a new pair of robes.

"It's ok, James. It would have happened anyways. All I could think about while he was apologizing that night was that even though he was saying that he said it accidentally, he was still thinking it. After all the years that we spent as friends, he still thought it. He was already completely changed. I realized that he had changed too much to go back to the way we were when he told me he made that curse to use against you guys. Whenever you cursed him, it never gave him any pain. But this spell, it could kill someone. It really scared me." After I confessed my feelings I took a deep breath and wiped the tear from my cheek that had escaped.

"You were worried about us?" He asked in disbelief. Before I answered, I looked at him, meeting eyes and opened my mouth to talk.

"Even though I hated you Marauders, I never, ever wished death on you guys. I would never wish death on anyone." I grabbed his hand and I laced my fingers in his.

He didnt say anything after that.

We eventually decided to go to dinner even though we were about thirty minutes late, we still had another half hour.

When we walked into the Great Hall we got a lot of stares. I understand because it was Lily Evans and James Potter walking into the Great Hall together, holding hands.

"Wait, Lily. I have a question." James stopped me before we got to our table.

"Yeah?"

"Will you go on the next Hogsmeade trip with me?" His back was toward the whole hall and he had his hands on my shoulders. I smiled and nodded.

"Phwew, that's off my chest." We both chuckled and made our way to our table.

After we had dinner we made our way back to our common room without stopping to talk to anyone, seeing as it was seven, we still had homework to do and tomorrow was Monday.

After finishing my homework for Transfiguration, with a little help from James, it was around ten O'clock and I told James that I needed to go to bed.

I got up from the couch we were sitting on, closed my Transfiguration book, rolled up the parchment I was writing on and started to walk towards the stairs that lead to my bedroom.

"Wait, Lily." James said before he grabbed my arm and spun me around.

"Yes?" I asked my face only an inch from his.

"I want a goodnight kiss." He said before leaning in and closing the gap between us. Our lips touched lightly and then I pressed harder. We stood there for a couple seconds and he broke away.

"Goodnight." He said smiling.

"'Night." I answered. We both walked towards our stairs and when I was half way up mine I decided to say something.

"Hey, James?" I peered around the corner of the wall that covered half of my stair case and he did the same.

"Hm?"

"If anyone asks, say you are my boyfriend." I didn't wait to see his reaction and I continued to walk up my stairs and plopped down on my bed, falling asleep without even changing out of my clothes.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I really hope you like this chapter. i ****worked**** extra hard on this chapter. But, i possibly could have worked a little harder. But, there is a place in this chapter that i really like. And you will know when you read it. **

**James POV**

"Dude, James." I heard a voice from my right.

"James. Earth to James." A voice from my left this time.

"You're going to have to do it, man." The voice from the left said.

"Ugh," groaned someone to my right. "I'm sorry, Prongs."

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my cheek and realize someone slapped me.

I open my eyes to see that I am in my bed, in the Head's common room and to my left is Remus and to my right is Sirius.

"What did you do that for?" I shout as I sit up in bed and feel my cheek.

"You wouldn't wake up." Sirius said innocently.

"Well, thanks." I rub my eyes and stand up, grab some clothes out of my dresser. They feel warm like my mom had just taken them out of the dryer and put them away.

"When are you going down to Hogsmeade?" Remus asked me.

"Oh, I don't know. I need to talk to Lily." I said walking out into the hallway to walk down to the bathroom.

"Wait, you're going with Lily?" Remus asked as he followed me down the spiraled stairs that led into the shared bathroom.

"Uh, yeah, Moony. Did I burst your bubble or something? I thought you and Mary had a thing?" I asked, laughing and putting toothpaste on my tooth brush.

"Yeah, yeah. Are you guys dating?" He walked up to me and Sirius was behind him.

I looked into the mirror at them and continued to brush my teeth.

The truth is I haven't told anyone what Lily had said to me last week. I just want to keep it between us for a little bit. But I guess if people see us leaning across the table, sharing a butterbeer with each other, they will start to talk.

"Uh," I spit into the sink. "yeah." and continued to brush my teeth.

"Prongs!" Sirius shouted clapping me on the back. I rinsed my mouth out and turned around to face Sirius.

"Yeah?" I tried to act all casual. But, really, the insides of my body were doing back flips and front walk overs. It felt like I could do anything. The one goal that I have had sense fourth year, I finally achieved it. I am dating the girl of my dreams. A smile spread on my face and Sirius pulled me in for a hug.

"That's amazing!" Sirius shouted.

"Sirius!" The door at the top of the stair case opened and Lily's voice shouted from the top. "Can you be any louder?"

Lily started walking down the stairs. She walked over to me and I wrapped my arm around her waist. I leaned down to give her a morning kiss but she put her hand on my lips.

"Morning breath." She said apologetically and went to brush her teeth.

"So, Lily-flower, what are you and Prongsie going to do today?" Sirius asked, winking at Remus.

"Padfoot, lay off." I said while I tried to wet my wild hair at the second sink.

Sirius smirked and he and Remus walked out of the bathroom.

An hour later Lily and I were walking down the path from the Hogwarts grounds to the only all wizard village, Hogsmeade.

"Where would Lily like to go?" Lily and I were holding hands and her grip tightened a little.

"I told you that I don't like choosing!" She giggled a little.

"Hmm, I have an idea." I winked at her and we continued the walk in silence.

When we got into the village I led Lily into the little patch of trees that was about a mile long at the back side of the village right next to the Shrieking Shack.

The nick name for that building has come as quite a joke for us Marauders because, as people think all the moaning and groaning are from ghosts, it is actually from my best friend, Remus who turns into a werewolf once a month, don't they notice it happens once a month?

"Why are we going in here?" Lily asked as she hopped off of a big boulder that was in her path.

"It's a place I like to come sometimes. It is very soothing."

Lily didn't ask any more questions after that.

We walked for another couple minutes and I saw the clearing up ahead that I was looking for.

About a quarter mile into the woods there was a clearing in the trees. It was a small one, about a nine meters by nine meters square. The trees were so thick and tall this far into the woods that the sky was still covered by leaves from other trees but there was sun shine peeking through the holes in the leaves.

There were flowers everywhere in sight, making the clearing even more beautiful than it is. You could hear the little stream that was right next to the clearing and the birds chirping. Everyonce and a while you would see a bunny hopping around or a turtle cross the stream. Mother Nature amazed me so much some times.

"Wow, this place is beautiful." Lily said as she released my hand to walk farther into the clearing and gap at her surroundings. "How did you find it?"

"Oh, it was just one night when I was wandering around." It was also a full moon and we hadn't gotten Remus into the Shrieking Shack in enough time before he transformed and he ran away, I stumbled across it when I was trying to look for him. I didn't have enough time to really look at it, but during the next Hogsmeade trip I went out to find it again, but I didn't tell her that.

She grabbed my hand and dragged me farther into the clearing.

We stayed there for a couple hours. We walked over to the stream and Lily played with the turtles, she played with the fish and she played with the little family of ducks while I went around and picked some flowers for her. I put an everlasting spell on them so they will not die until Lily does.

"Lily!" I called to her.

She stood up from playing in the river and ran over to me.

"Yeah?"

"This is for you. I charmed it so it wont die until the owner does."

She took the flower out of my hand, put it in her bag and stood on her tippy-toes to give me a kiss. As I was leaning down she quickly dodged it and kissed me on the cheek.

"Oh, you are going to pay for that!" I started running after her.

The sound that was coming out of her mouth, the giggling, made me feel so warm inside.

I chased her around the clearing. A couple times my fingers graced her shirt but that girl is fast! What am I supposed to do?

She made a break for it and ran out of the clearing. She was running so fast that the only reason I knew where she was was because of her laughing.

Suddenly, I couldn't hear her laughing. I also couldn't see her red hair anywhere in the clearing.

"Lily?" I called out.

I slowed down to a walk and looked around the thick trees.

I heard leaves crackle and I turned around.

"Well, hello Mr. Potter."

The voice made me want to hind away in the common room for the rest of my life. His voice sounded so cruel, like he didn't care what happened to anyone. It didn't have any feelings, only pure evil.

"Voldemort." I hissed through my teeth.

"Are you looking for Lily, Mr. Potter?" He had his wand out in his hand and was twirling it between his fingers while he circled me.

I cleared my throat. He obviously knew where Lily was. He probably had one of his nasty Death Eaters covering her mouth so she couldn't scream out my name.

Bile rose in my throat as the thought crawled through my mind.

"Actually, I was looking for the flower. Lily is back in Hogsmeade."

As fast as a snake strike, Voldemort ran up to me and stuck his wand in my throat.

"Do not lie to the Dark Lord, Mr. Potter, if you want to live. I know that Miss. Evans is some place in these woods. I could possibly have her, I might not."

He was pushing his wand into my throat with so much pressure I felt warm, thick liquid rolling down my neck.

Voldemort took his long, pale finger and took some blood from neck and looked at it.

All I need is a quick break. I need to be faster than him, faster than a snake strike. I looked around at my surroundings and saw that there were plenty of big trees for me to hind behind.

I took a deep breath and—

"Lily." I took an intake of breath as I saw bright red hair flow out from behind one of the trees in front of me.

"You are so desparate to see her, Mr. Potter, that you are seeing hallucinations. So you know that she isn't back in Hogsmeade." Voldemort took his wand from my neck and wiped my blood off the tip.

I drew my wand from under my pant leg and slid it under my sleeve while Voldemort was looking at a tree behind his back.

"Snape, are you having trouble controlling the mudblood?" Voldemort walked over to the tree where I saw Lily's hair and grabbed her by the arm.

She already had cuts covering her beautiful face, blood dripping from her hands and has a cloth covering her mouth.

"Look who I found running through the woods." He threw her to the ground. The sound that came from her mouth made my heart shatter into a million pieces.

Subconsciously I started to run to her but Voldemort cut me off.

"Get any closer and she dies." He snapped.

I quickly stopped and let my wand drop into my hand from under my sleeve.

"Good. Let's duel." He laughed his cruel laugh.

Before her could do anything I ran behind the closest tree.

"Come on, James. Lets not play hide-and-seek. Come out and fight like a man. Don't want Lily to think you are a coward."

Anger rose through my body and I stepped out from behind the tree.

"Ah, good, good."

"_Flipendo!"_ I pointed my wand at Snape and he flew backwards against a tree so hard he fell unconscious.

"Well, that was uncalled for." Voldemort sounded disappointed. "You will have to pay for it."

He pointed his wand at Lily and shouted "_Crucio!"_

Immediately Lily's body distorted in pain and she started screaming behind her cloth.

"Oh, dear. Let's let her breathe." Voldemort walked up to her and ripped off the cloth covering her mouth. "Lets try this again." He lifted his wand again and pointed it at Lily.

"_Crucio!"_

This time wails erupted from Lily's mouth.

Seeing her in so much pain made me cringe.

"Stop doing this to her!" I yelled over her screams. "What do you want from me?"

Immediately Lily's screams stopped and Voldemort lifted his head to look at me.

"What do I want?" He looked at me confused. "I want all Mudbloods to pay for interrupting the wizard gene. It will be _their_ fault when wizards die out from society!" He put his attention back on Lily and she started screaming again.

What can I do?

I looked at my surroundings again. The only thing that I could see was trees and we were at least half a mile away from Hogsmeade. Even if I got Lily to get up we wouldn't be able to run back to town.

I need to figure out a way to use the trees to my advantage…

As soon as I had an idea I started working my magic.

I looked around at the trees again, examining the size of each one. They were all about the same size, the perfect size.

I quickly listed my wand at Voldemort, who was not paying attention to me and shouted "_Alarte Ascendare" _

Voldemort flew up into the air just as Lily's screams shut off again.

I turned to the tree that was standing right behind Voldemort and pointed my wand at it as I thought _Reducto_! And it cut in half, falling on top of Voldemort smashing him to the ground.

I ran to Lily and saw that she was unconscious.

I grabbed her arm and draped it around my neck, wrapped my arm under her knew and picked her up.

Before Voldemort could realize what I did, I started sprinting back, with Lily in my arms bridal style and within four minutes I started to see the outline of Hogsmeade.

I ran to the edge of the road where the forest and the town met and I collapsed out of exhaustion.

"Omigod! Jerry, come help them!" I had enough energy to look up and see two people running towards Lily and I.

"Are you, ok?" The man, whose name must be Jerry, asked. I looked up at him. He had dark brown hair, a pointed nose, his eyes were sunken into his head and close to his nose.

"Attacked… V-Voldemort…" I said with no breath. Then, suddenly, as if someone shut the lights out, the world faded to black.

**Lily's POV**

"This is the second time he has been into the hospital, don't you think we should leave him here a little longer. I mean, he was magically cut by a knife and attacked my Voldemort. We might want to make sure no vital organs are mortally damaged."

"He will be alright, Mr. Black. All he did was collapse from exhaustion. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did not do anything to him. Mr. Potter used a lot of power to defeat him and then carry Ms. Evans back, while running, to Hogsmeade. All he needs is sleep, Mr. Black." The seconds voice stopped for a second. "Well, it looks like Ms. Evans is awake now. Please, let me tend to her and I will summon you once Mr. Potter wakes up, thank you."

I had opened my eyes to see who was talking. Obviously, Sirius was in here, no doubt. But the second voice was Madam Pomfrey.

After Sirius finally left the Hospital Wing Madam Pomfrey came over to me.

"How are you feeling, Ms. Evans?"

"What happened?" I looked over at his bed and it was clear that he wasn't hurt, which made me calm down a little bit. He had one of his legs hanging off the bed, the other was stretched out straight, he was laying on his stomach, snoring.

"Honey, do you remember anything?" Madam Pomfrey started checking my vitals.

"Last thing I remember is…. James giving me the flower…" I tried to think harder, but everything was blank. I looked outside, it had to be at least nine in the morning. How long had we been out? Hours or days?

"Sweetie, you were attacked by Voldemort. James saved your life by carrying your unconscious body back to Hogsmeade after fighting off Voldemort."

I could not believe what she was saying. James had fought off Voldemort then carried me back. No wonder he was so exhausted.

"Is he going to be OK?" I asked her, looking at his bed again. He was still sound asleep.

"He will be just fine." She promised.

After Madam Pomfrey checked to make sure that I was free to go, she told me to come back at lunch time to check on James and for me to go see Professor Dumbledore.

I walked out of the hospital wing and started to make my way down to Dumbledore's office.

I was walking past the Charms room when someone grabbed my arm and yanked me into the classroom.

I tried to scream but the person had covered my mouth with a cloth.

"Shhh, Lily, be quiet!" The voice said.

The attacker's voice was nasally and boyish.

I turned around once his hands released my arms.

"Snape!"

"Lily, I am so happy you are OK. I was told that Voldemort had attacked a mudblood today and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't you." He said very quickly.

"It was me, slime ball," I backed away from him. His hair was as greasy as ever. He was as lanky as ever. And it made my stomach broil.

"Wait, what?"

"Voldemort attacked James and I today while we were in Hogsmeade. Now, let me go!" I tried to leave the classroom but Snape grabbed my arm again.

"Are you OK?"

"You have no right to worry about me, Snape. You bloody _work_ for him,"

"No, I—" He started to protest but Lily cut him off.

"Don't deny it. You know it's true. You showed me by helping him kill my mom last summer."

"Lily, i had to do that. He was going to kill me if I didn't."

I grabbed his left arm, pulling up his sleeve and pointing to the black ink that scarred his forearm.

Without saying anything, I strutted out of the classroom and continued my way up to Dumbledore's office.

Not once did I look back on my old friend Severus. Nor could I, even if I wanted to. Because Severus wasn't Severus anymore. He was someone that Voldemort had brainwashed.

"Peppermint Patties." I told the gargoyles in front of Dumbledores office. They jumped to the side and a staircase descended in place of the door. I walked over to it and walked up the stairs to Dumbledore's office door. I knocked once before Dumbledore's voice called from inside saying that I could come in.

"Hello, Ms. Evans." Dumbledore called from behind his desk as I walked in.

"Hello, Professor Dumbledore."

"Please, sit down."

I walked over to the chair that was in front of his desk and sat in it.

"How was your day so far?"

I giggled a little. "I have been sleeping all day, sir."

"Oh, i am aware. Are you aware that a victim of Voldemort escaped a couple days ago? And it wasn't only one, it was two students that study at this very school."

"Well, that just shows how well they teach magic here, sir."

"Now, on to serious matter," Dumbedore had a little twinkle in his eye before he moved on to talking. "Are you doing ok, Ms. Evans?"

I rolled my neck around, straightened out my legs and arms, patted my face and checked my fingers. "I seem to be all right, sir."

"Well, I am very glad. It is once in a million that Voldemort's victims escape him, never mind two. I am very surprised that he was working by himself."

"How do you know that, sir, if you dont mind me asking?" He smirked a little before answering.

"Last night, Madam Pomfrey woke up Mr. Potter for some questioning and after a lot of arguing from James' side, we put him back to sleep."

"Oh, so you know that James is ok?"

"He will be perfectly fine, Ms. Evans. He is in the great care of one of the finest Healers I have ever met. In fact, he should be awake later on today. Per-say, around lunch time maybe?

I looked at my watch. It was still a couple hours until lunch time. What would I do until then? Everyone would be in classes right now.

"You are free to do whatever you want until then. After that, I am sure that Madam Pomfrey will reluctantly let Mr. Potter leave the hospital wing." Dumbledore winked. I guess that that was his way of a dismissal and I left the Headmasters office.

After a couple minutes of walking down the hallway i decided to go outside, get some fresh air, because I obviously haven't sense we went down to Hogsmeade.

Thinking of Hogsmeade made the long to be with James. He made my mood better. I was also feeling down. I dont really know why. Maybe I misses my dad, maybe I missed my friends. I dont really know. I was just in a funk.

I got an idea. I quickly ran back inside, up to the seventh floor, running into the Head's common room, grabbing a pen, some ink and parchment paper. Then, taking my time, I walked back outside.

I took the path that walked through the field in front of Hogwarts, through the gates of the entrance to Hogwarts and made my way back down to Hogsmeade.

I tried to be sneaky, sense I wasn't supposed to be down in Hogsmeade, especially because I was just attacked by Voldemort.

I walked over to the shrieking shack and into the woods where James and i went the other day.

It took me a couple tries, but after about an hour I finally found the clearing in the woods that James and I had been at yesterday.

This place will always remind me of James. Also, in some ways it reminds me of my mom; the purity of the place, how green the grass is, the water flowing in the background, the little ducks and her ducklings waddling around by the stream. It just reminds me of how nice my mom was. Maybe that is why i was drawn here today. I miss my mom.

I mean, how could I not? She was always there for me to hold my hand or clean my face when it got a little dirty, even if I hated it. I took her for granted so much when i grew up, I walked all over her, and now that I dont have her, I would do anything in the world just to be able to hear her laugh again, be able to say goodbye to her, or maybe even have her wipe off my face when it got a little dirty.

I took the quill out of my bag that I brought, the parchment paper and the ink. I leaned against a tree and started writing.

_Dear Mom,_

_I miss you a lot. There are no words that can describe how much I miss you. I know Dad misses you also, and Petunia, they both miss you. It took us a while to get us out of the deep pit that we were in. With Dad not working and not getting a pay check, I had to work extra on weekends and Petunia had to take a double shift at the food market jus tot scrape by every month. Then I finally got Dad out of bed, he got back his weight and got his job back. They understood though, seeing how much he loved you. He needed a little time to get over the heart break._

_Hogwarts has been fun this year. It has also been very different. You know James Potter? I always talk about him being a toe rag, well, now he's my toe rag. I know, I know, don't have a heart attack in your grave. You thought we would never get together? Neither did I. But he changed over the summer; he grew up. And I really like his new self. He is more generous, he is funny but without being an obnoxious human being. You might also be saying finally. I guess I am too. Maybe I have always had a little crush on him. I don't really know. But, I know that I did fall head over-heals for him. I might even be in love with him. He was there for me when I really needed someone. _

_Enough about James, I could go on and on about him. This letter would be long enough to call it a novel! Well, Hogwarts has also been different because Dumbledore had put a lot more security onto the grounds of Hogwarts. What, with all the attacks from Voldemort and all the killings. I guess I should tell you something. The other day while James and I were in Hogsmeade we got attacked. Right at there very spot that I am writing this letter. Yet, I am not afraid, even though I am alone, I know I am safe. Maybe it is because I know that you are watching over me. Or I hope that you are. _

_James is getting out of the hospital wing soon; he got a little more beat up than I did. But, that means that I should probably go. I want to be there when he wakes up. _

_I dont really know who to end this letter. I love you mom, and I miss you a lot. I wish you were here. I wish that you got to see me graudate Hogwarts, hopefully get married to James and I wish you were here to see your grandchildren. But, sadly, you wont. And I will have to deal with that. _

_With lots of love,_

Lily Evans

I couldn't help but let a tear fall as I folded up the letter and put it back in my bag, not knowing what to do with it.

I looked at my watch and saw that it said it was quarter until eleven o'clock. I put everything back into my bag and started walking in the direction of Hogsmeade, letting the tears flow now.


End file.
